Hay Haulin' with a First Gen

[Bill Stockard]

Our neighbor rancher who bales hay off our pasture has just completed the third cutting of hay this summer and is loading his gooseneck trailer being towed with his First Gen CTD. This is the fourth year the First Gen has hauled away the big round bales.

Bill

 

[Wingate]

I should have taken some pics of my 3/4 ton with 14 bales on it... . but I really didnt want any evidence for the DOT guys!!. . hahaha. . Thats actually a pretty decent looking old 1st gen. .

 

[Bill Stockard]

Yep, he only hauls 11 bales at the time. He uses the First Gen to tow a big gooseneck cattle trailer and also owns a second gen 24-valve to tow his fifth wheel trailer. Ranching is his second job after retiring from 44 years at TXDOT.



He had a little excitement as he was finishing up and was ejecting the last big round bale from his Vermeer baler. A sealed bearing on one of the main shafts failed and set the baler on fire. Fortunately, he saw the smoke and had a fire extinguisher in the cab of his tractor and quickly put it out before the fire reached two hydraulic hoses nearby. There have been balers, tractors, hay fields, and big round bales burned from the lack of carrying an adequate fire extinguisher and seeing the fire in time.



Bill

 

[HBarlow]

Bill,

What does a large round bale weigh?

 

[Bill Stockard]

I don't know what those bales weigh, but I'd guess between 700 and 900 lbs. since it's a combination of Bermuda and Bahia grass hay and is lighter than some other varieties of hay. He rolls a "tight" bale which also affects the weight.



Bill

 

[Deleted member 995608]

I'm guessing those are heavier than that. Std bail average 125lbs.

 

[Bill Stockard]

I'm guessing those are heavier than that. Std bail average 125lbs.

When my father was operating a square baler, he wanted a tight bale and cranked it down for a 100 to 125-lb bale. My brother and I earned our keep hauling those out of the field. :-laf We were baling a sorghum-sudan hybrid hay and that stuff is heavy. Bermuda grass and Bahia grass is much more "springy" and it's difficult to compress it into a 100-125-lb bale. Most square bales of this type of grass usually weigh around 65 to 75--lbs. consequently, I think when it's rolled into big round bales, they will weighs less than 1,000-lbs.



BTW, the first gen truck towing the goose-neck is a '90 W350 4x4 5-speed with a 4. 10 axle ratio. He bought it used in 1994 from an individual who used it to tow his 5th wheel and that's why the RV hauler type bed. It had 82,000 miles on it when he bought it and the speedometer quit working at 100,000 miles and he says he has put another 100,000 miles on it since then. The only problem he has had with it was a rear axle failure at a little over 100,000 miles. He replaced it with one from a wrecking yard and it's still going and uses it nearly every day to tow a trailer of some kind.



He also owns a '97 3500 dually for towing his 5th wheel along with two big touring type Kawasaki motorcycles. He's a long time bike rider too.



Bill

 

[BIGNASTY]

The hay up here varies so much with moisture content that its hard to tell. I get 3 wire Bales and they supposedly weigh 90lbs but some are a VERY HEAVY 90lbs. I was told that the double compressed round bales are 9,3 wire bales but I think that is some wishful thinking FIL feeds the round ones in winter and it just doesn't look like 9 to me. This might help if you want to do some math and investigation.



http://www.hayexchange.com/mt.php





There are several types of bales commonly used for alfalfa. For small animals and individual horses, the alfalfa is baled into small two-string bales, commonly named by the strands of string used to wrap it. Other bale sizes are three-string, and so on up to half-ton (six-string) "square" bales – actually rectangular, and typically about 40 x 45 x 100 cm (14 in x 18 in x 38 in). [3] Small square bales weigh from 25 – 30 kg (50 – 70 pounds) depending on moisture, and can be easily hand separated into "flakes". Cattle ranches use large round bales, typically 1. 4 to 1. 8 m (4 to 6 feet) in diameter and weighing from 500 to 1,000 kg, (1000 to 2000 lbs). These bales can be placed in stable stacks or in large feeders for herds of horses, or unrolled on the ground for large herds of cattle. [3] The bales can be loaded and stacked with a tractor using a spike, known as a bale spear, that pierces the center of the bale,[40] or they can be handled with a grapple (claw) on the tractor's front-end loader. A more recent innovation is large "square" bales, roughly the same proportions as the small squares, but much larger. The bale size was set so stacks would fit perfectly on a large flatbed truck. These are more common in the western United States

 

[Wingate]

I jsut bought some Coastal rools over in Longview that are 1K easy... .
Seeing that 1st gen makes me miss my old 89.....

 

[Bill Stockard]

I jsut bought some Coastal rools over in Longview that are 1K easy... .
Seeing that 1st gen makes me miss my old 89.....

Maybe the bales do weigh 1,000-lbs each and that's why he leaves tracks in the pasture when hauling 11 bales on the tandem axle dual wheel gooseneck. The next time I talk to our rancher neighbor, and if I remember to ask, I'll ask what he thinks what a bale weighs. I may be under estimating the weight...

Bill

 

[Okie-Go]

In the summer of 2010 I hauled three bales to town on my gn from my dad's ranch and the bales were an avg of 1180 lbs a piece. The scales at the flying J are about 7. 5 miles from the ranch so I didn't worry much about the fuel difference.