Handling Round Bales with open station tractor.....

[Adam]

What are your opinions on handling/stacking 5x6 round bales with open station tractor?  Have heard of many a horror story on bale rolling back at operator, but is this only when someone uses a regular bucket with no grapple?  We've been using a 4020 w/ 58 loader and bale spear.  Have never had much of a worry with that.  Just wondering some of your opinions?  Like everything just use common sense  right? 

[Clayton Mitchell]

I used to buy hay off of an operation near Meckling, South Dakota and the owner of the place had one come back on him and cleaned him off the back of the tractor. He survived it (I think he got a bruised heart and if I recall that's a serious injury).

If it can go wrong it probably will sometime. I used to load semi trailer flat bed and you have to get those bales up there pretty high to do it right.

Probably not worth the risk. Even if you or I would think we could do it without incident. What happens when someone is filling in that isn't as skilled and it goes wrong. Or slipper ground where the tractor slides around when loading a trailer.

[Kevin Bucher]

we use forks on our 2750 with a 145 loader and don't have much problem. Like you said, use common sense. I think as long as you a careful and watch your bale and what you are doing it's ok.

[Bronson Allred]

With our little operation and just loading round bales on a pickup hay trailer it works fine as long as you keep the bucket level and don't let it tip back too far. But yes if you use common sense you should be fine.

[Andrew Newcomb]

We roll 5x6 bales and stack them with an open station Ford 7710 with a Westendorf loader with a spear. Like you say common sense and being careful is about the best things to have when working around anything that is hazardous. You dont' hear much about bales falling back on tractor operators around here.

[aaron dennis]

When I feed round bales in the winter I stack 2 bales in the feeder with the loader on my dads MF 175. We have a regular bucket on the tractor and a bolt in bale spike. When ever Im putting the bales in the feeder I keep the bucket level so if something does break it drops the bale on the ground. I do wonder what would happen to me if the spike did break free when I have the loader up in the air and a bale on the spike, esp since its help on with a grade 5 bolt and short piece of chain.

[K2]

We use the same 4020 with 58 loader set up on 4X6 bales. Our hay barns stack 3 high. We have factory build spears that go with the loader hook up. If you have a bolt in spear to the bucket and pick up a 1 ton round bale you are asking for a different kind of problem. Im thinking broken front end with that much weight that far forward.

M2C