# how on earth do farmers do it?!



## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

I helped move 60 small square bales of hay today. Four people loaded the trailer at the farm (the farmer helped) and three people unloaded it at the other end. So I probably moved 15 bales twice and a further 5 once, making for a grand total of the equivalent of 35 bales.

It took us two hours, and my hands are a wreck.

How in the h-e-double-hockeysticks do farmers move multiple thousand of the bloody things in a single day?!


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## SlideStop (Dec 28, 2011)

Seriously. 

I'm always impressed when the throw them into to loft from the main floor!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

We had almost a production line of stacking. I was up on top of a lower stack of bales hefting bales up onto the top of a high stack to get them all stacked out of the weather. We could fling them up to about head height but no higher!

I'm unfit. I used to be able to carry (and throw around!) over 60% of my body weight, though admittedly that isn't all that much. And the funny thing is I wasn't even doing any regular heavy lifting at the time - just riding a horse that was heavy on the hands. I wasn't pulling on him, he wasn't pulling on me, he just put an enormous amount of weight into the contact.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

blue eyed pony said:


> I helped move 60 small square bales of hay today. Four people loaded the trailer at the farm (the farmer helped) and three people unloaded it at the other end. So I probably moved 15 bales twice and a further 5 once, making for a grand total of the equivalent of 35 bales.
> 
> It took us two hours, and my hands are a wreck.
> 
> How in the h-e-double-hockeysticks do farmers move multiple thousand of the bloody things in a single day?!


We go out and get our small bales in the fields right after they've been baled and we do approximately 500 small squares/year. It takes us 3 days of loading/unloading/stacking to get it all in. The farmer "cheats" he's got a loader that does it all for him. 
https://youtu.be/qMsqkcUWAis


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## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

That looks like it's for the big export squares, I've never seen anything that stacks small squares as neatly as a well-practiced farmer!


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

blue eyed pony said:


> That looks like it's for the big export squares, I've never seen anything that stacks small squares as neatly as a well-practiced farmer!


We call those Mid-Squares, in other words in the middle between the small squares and big rounds. His loader is adjustable for the size of the squares he wants to pick up and stack.


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## Dehda01 (Jul 25, 2013)

What in the world took you two hours? We wear gloves and carry two bales at a time. I have been stacking 500-650 bales a night for nearly every night for the last month trying to catch up on our hay!


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## Woodhaven (Jan 21, 2014)

My husband, before we were married, farmed here alone, 300 acres, and had a small feed lot with about 200 head. He did all the work by himself and that included haying. He had a bale thrower to load the wagons and then he would unload onto the elevator and then after several bales would have to go up in the barn to stack the bales. I don't know how he did it all by himself as this is a tremendous amount of work.

I have unloaded many wagons of hay in my life and I have also gone (by myself) and loaded up my truck with about 50 bales, brought them home and put them in the barn. I had 2 horses then and needed about 300 bales which was 6 truck loads. Could this be why my back is no good now?
I wish I had a nickel for every bale I have handled in my life, I'd be rich.

A tip, always wear gloves and long pants and a long sleeved shirt.


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## Roman (Jun 13, 2014)

Weren't you wearing gloves. We didn't do square bales this year but previous years we'd have several people help. Two would pick them up and put them on the trailer where someone else would stack them.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Around here the larger ranches typically hire migrant workers since you can't get high school kids to do the work anymore. They are paid by the job and you should see how hard these guys work to finish and get to the next job. They don't take breaks, even for water.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

Most of the time was spent on stacking bales into our trailer. We had to try to get 60 bales into a 3-horse angle load horse trailer (in the end we got 59) and then because it was so much weight and probably exceeded the tow rating of the vehicle (3140kg) we went about half the speed limit all the way back to our barn. The car didn't seem to mind but I don't think it would have coped too well if the trailer had started to fishtail. Even as big and heavy as the towing vehicle is (it's a large SUV), that's a lot of weight. They were reasonably heavy bales. So we were slower than maybe we could have been but we got the job done.

I wasn't wearing gloves because the only ones I have are my good leather riding gloves and I didn't much fancy trying to get hay seeds out of those when I was done.


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## hollysjubilee (Nov 2, 2012)

*Haying around the country*

In Wisconsin, we towed the hay wagon behind the baler and had someone toss them *from the baler into the wagon* where we would stand and stack, take it to the hay *elevator* and have someone up in the hayloft to stack when the bales came up through the hay loft door. (35-40 lb bales back in the 1960s)

In Vermont, it was done similarly with hay wagons and elevators and lofts. (35-40 lb bales)

In, CO, it would get loaded on an 18-wheeler load that had been loaded with a grapple and we would unload by hand, 100 lb bales, right onto the sandy floor of a hay barn, OR there was an 18-wheeler flat bed that would just *push the hay off the flatbed, down a ramp*, where it would *sit on the floor of the hay barn* just as it had been stacked on the flatbed.

In CA, the 18-wheeler would come to the ranch, followed by "the Squeeze," a separate vehicle with big, flat iron arms that would slide between the stacked bales (100 lbs) on the flatbed, and *pick up a third of the hay* and drive it over to the barn and *place it on the floor*, go back for another stack, and go back for the last stack. 

Here in KS, I've never seen such labor intensive hay work in my life. As far as the small bales (80 - 100 lbs), the baler leaves them on the ground in the field, and folks go out, pick them up (used to be able to carry 2 bales of VT hay, one in each hand, but have trouble picking up and carrying ONE KS bale, so it's hard work, and MUCH hotter here during hay season than it is in VT) and stack them on flatbeds, bring them to the hay barn and unstack them by hand. One of my hay guys has what he calls a squeeze . . . but it's not like the big, truck squeeze in CA, but I think is really a grapple that is attached to the front of his tractor and can pick up a layer of 10 small bales at a time to stack in the barn. I don't know why KS farmers don't just pull a hay wagon behind the baler . . . 

My neighbor just got an old truck that goes after the bales in the field. It scoops them up in the front, sends them over the cab and puts them in the back of the truck. (tried to find a picture online, but can't) Seems the young fellows who used to earn extra money by hefting bales in the KS summers just aren't willing to do that work anymore. (actually, I don't blame them . . . but it's kinda sad to think that so many are sitting inside with their iPhones instead of outdoors working with friends) Lots of KS farmers have ditched the small bale idea and have gone to the round bales.

I'm sure there are other ways people do baling around the country. The regional differences are intriguing to me, and the different kinds of equipment used are fascinating as we think of how different farmers found unique ways to get their work done as efficiently as possible.

As I look in the roof of my (now) horse barn, I can see the metal track that used to allow the hay hook to slide back and forth as it was let down out the hayloft door where it would grab a bunch of loose hay from the wagon, and was lifted and slid across the track to deposit the loose hay in the loft. One rarely sees a hay loft in the dry midwest or southwest (maybe haylofts were designed for dairy barns, but back East, one can't leave hay on the ground without ending with moldy hay) . . . mostly the round bales are left out in the weather or some are stacked in open barns.


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## COWCHICK77 (Jun 21, 2010)

How do hay farmers do it?
It's called a harrow bed


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## ChitChatChet (Sep 9, 2013)

I've done 20+ tons alone and pregnant.

That was when I was young and more in shape  I had a small mazda pickup that I loaded up with about 13 bales of hay drove to the barn unloaded and stacked. Stuck my head under the faucet, re-wet my rag, got a drink and I was off again to repeat.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

When I was 20 I boarded my horse at a dairy farm. I went to see where everyone was. They were haying so I pitched in. Bumper crop meant we were stacking squares in the field. One of the men would salt down the rows as we finished. By days end my share was close to 300 bales because I wound up setting bales on the elevator to put in the barn. My body was so tired and my arms felt like my knuckles were close to scraping the ground, like a gorilla. Next day I could hardly move but we gotten the job done and it felt good.


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## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

I had this plan for my eventual horse property where I would have a good hundred acres or so just for haying (which would become my summer spelling pasture after the hay cuts were over with for the year) and I would do it all myself, but I guess I've learned there's no way I could ever do that much work alone! I guess if I fed hay by just dumping a round bale in each pasture it'd be doable (you move round bales with a tractor ) but certainly not squares. I've lived on small acreage so I'm aware land is hard work... and I'm incredibly unfit at the moment so I'm sure I'd do better if it was the kind of work I did every day. But it's still a lot!


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

When I get hay I don't have a choice, I have to unload the 40 from one truck and the 35 in the other truck on a day. I help stack when I buy, and then I unload next to the loft door. The first rows go in level, and the last 6 bales get a "clean and jerk".
NEVER move hay without gloves!! The twine or wire will just rip up you hands.
The bales are 55-65 lbs each, and I don't throw my back out.
I'M just happy that I have a loft to store the hay in, AND My new barn roof goes on in early September. :loveshower: :loveshower: :loveshower: :loveshower: :loveshower:


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