- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
Or leaving them until the next morning because it’s not going to rain then waking up in the middle of the night with the rain hammering down.
Kit one used to see
- Thread starter Oliveau
- Start date
Never ever leave little bales out
clbarclay
Member
- Location
- Worcestershire
So what was the worst kind of little bale sledge?
We had one which the bales just piled into and then the driver had to manually trip the back gate, leaving jumbled piles of bales for kids to manually stack into sevens for a Perri loader (Bale Slave?).
If you were very lucky the driver had kept count of seven bales in the sledge each time and hadn't had only 6 in one pile. Was a pita if you had to keep carrying bales between piles to make stacks the Perri could handle. Inconsistent bale length could be another headache, meaning a second trip round the field was needed to pick up all the parts stacks the loader had left behind.
Neighbours flat 8 system is marvelous after that.
We had one which the bales just piled into and then the driver had to manually trip the back gate, leaving jumbled piles of bales for kids to manually stack into sevens for a Perri loader (Bale Slave?).
If you were very lucky the driver had kept count of seven bales in the sledge each time and hadn't had only 6 in one pile. Was a pita if you had to keep carrying bales between piles to make stacks the Perri could handle. Inconsistent bale length could be another headache, meaning a second trip round the field was needed to pick up all the parts stacks the loader had left behind.
Neighbours flat 8 system is marvelous after that.
Lazy Sod
Member
- Location
- Warminster Wiltshire
Bagger combines. All combines without a cab.
- Location
- North Norfolk
We had Claas Maximum balers, which put the bale out in line with the pickup, so if they were dropped out straight were in the way of the tractor for the next round. We made these trailers on farm, on castor wheels with two drawbars so they stayed in line with the baler. It was my job to put them up into 15s (3 rows of 4 and a row of 3 on top to bind them) so the Lister TakePut forks on front end loader and 3 point linkage could carry them.
- Location
- Durham, UK
Just scrapped a 1974 fahr she was worn out. Used till last year tho. Replaced with a mid 90s kv (tarrup) drum mower. Gone all modern
Oliveau
Member
- Location
- Indre et Loire, France
Back in the early 70’s we had a 5000 SOS with an F11 loader fitted with a Farmhand flat 8 grab, BUT my old guv’nor wouldn’t buy a flat 8 accumulator! So we had to make up flat 8 packs by hand. Fortunately the NH 276 baler had quite a noisy needle operation, so I could count 8 needle trips then pull the sledge release rope.
Then a new tenant bought a Farmhand flat 8 accumulator which was a complete PITA as it didn’t like our steep sloping downland.
Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
I think our Samasz drum mowers are pretty much copies of the old Fahrs.
- Location
- Near Beeston Castle
Our Browns bale sledge just gathered them up randomly, not that it mattered because we didn't have a loader anyway and were all loaded by pitchfork or pikel as they are called around here.
Scrapped it 2 years ago after unsuccessfully trying to sell it for £30 on marketplace.
Never minded carting small straw bales apart from the amount of thistles in them, hay was the one I was less keen on as it was always red hot, humid and a rush before the rain.
Scrapped it 2 years ago after unsuccessfully trying to sell it for £30 on marketplace.
Never minded carting small straw bales apart from the amount of thistles in them, hay was the one I was less keen on as it was always red hot, humid and a rush before the rain.
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
We had a Sellars bale hopper a big triangular basket on wheels. The bales would go up a big ramp probably three bales long so you could see any broken bands the hopper held anything up to 25 bales and you pulled a rope and dropped them out in a row. We then stacked them in 32s and 24s and lifted the 24 on the 32 with a squeeze on a Manitou. If close to home we'd bring them in with the Manitou reversing down the road. Longer distances we used a 56 bale squeeze trailer my Dad had built. Later we moved to a flat 8 and windrowing sledge but we still restacked some to get a tie. Finally we built a flat 10 sledge and never touched a bale again by then I'd left home.
When I was 16 my father made my a partner in the business ,and gave my the use of the cheque book
And my first purchase at 16 was a new piece of kit ,was a pz 165 from burgess in Shipton on Stour
It was about £750
Father used it first to cut a field of grass.
That’s a good buy “son”
I still have fond memory of that, it was 45 years ago.
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
I think IH took over the Jowett factory in Bradford and they used it to build the little B- series tractors up to the 434.
Oliveau
Member
- Location
- Indre et Loire, France
My dad had a Javelin in mid fifties. A very advanced car.
DeeGee
Member
- Location
- North East Wales
Whomsoever invented the flat 8 system deserves both a medal and eternal pacific rest in a heaven of his choice.
Having been brought up without the aid of any collecting sledge; and then the relatively luxury of stooking bales from a group of bales ranging from six to ten: the advent of a flat eight sledge to be picked up by a purpose built grab meant that was once a labour intensive system could now be managed by one man with a tractor loader or a JCB loadall equipped with a flat eight grab.
Small bales could now be stacked loaded and re stacked in a hay shed mechanically without the sweat of several manual labourers.
And as time has now proven, such manual labour as was willing to endure such privation is now virtually non existent anyway.
Having been brought up without the aid of any collecting sledge; and then the relatively luxury of stooking bales from a group of bales ranging from six to ten: the advent of a flat eight sledge to be picked up by a purpose built grab meant that was once a labour intensive system could now be managed by one man with a tractor loader or a JCB loadall equipped with a flat eight grab.
Small bales could now be stacked loaded and re stacked in a hay shed mechanically without the sweat of several manual labourers.
And as time has now proven, such manual labour as was willing to endure such privation is now virtually non existent anyway.
- Location
- N.Lincs
That's a DPS 12 ......bit too modern for my liking - we still have the earlier DP 12......
It has two handles but also a hydraulic 'conversion'.
Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
We still employed lots of local lads to stack in the barn even after we went to Flat-8s, but by about 1988, it was becoming increasingly hard to find help until one Sunday, the head stacker didn't turn up and just said he'd decided to take his wife to the beach instead.
Up until then, dad had refused to try round bales since he said that they wasted half the barn space, but by 1988 dad had died and I rather reluctantly opted for an RP12 rather than swapping in the small baler.
It suddenly became a one man job, but we didn't get rid of the men with the new technology, the men simply didn't want the job any more and we had no option.
clbarclay
Member
- Location
- Worcestershire
Used to be a time when my grandad would go down the pub and see who fancied a bit of work getting bales in. A few hours later they would all be back at the pub to drink it off. It's a very different clientele in the pub these days decades.
- Location
- sw scotland
The baler driver here just tripped the sledge every 50m leaving bales in rows across the field. Then built them into triangles of 20 and used old front and back horse buckrakes to transport up to 2 miles up the road 40 at a time. Could shift a lot in a day to get under cover and if careful could pick them up again to move to the hay shed.
But if one tine knocked a bale out then whole thing needed rebuilt.