Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Hay Hauling (hey Wabigoon)

We haven’t had a hay thread in a bit! 😁😁

I’m really glad I found out that loop for the excess strap.

It was sort of a “well, duh” moment.

The folks that delivered the Foremost cattle equipment had some slick gizmos.

No picture

Exsprain prease.



My haybloads with a clamshell grabber on his skid steer. I slip a snatch strap around them to drag off the trailer, then move with the hay spear on my B 2650.
M

I sold my 22 ft tri axle flatbed,and now haul 3x3's in my 14 ft dump trailer. I can put 8 on it ,but a little sticks out the back so,I tie the doors together.
I dump them near the barn door and my Kubota can pick the 800 #bales up with hay spears. Then I put them in the hay barn.I can't lift 3x4's though. I use the chain saw to cut the 3x3's in half long ways so it is easier to feed.I don't like to set a whole bale out there as a 1/3 rd of it would get wasted.

A short, light round cord with a slip in keeper.

IB, seems I remember you had your bales shrink wrapped, or something like it to preserve them?

Wrapped haylage bales. We only feed them in winter temps. Like other “lages”, it kind of ferments and preserves the hay. Horses fall on it with glad cries.



Some outfits wrap the round, leaving the ends open. For weather protection storing on round side.

Good to see hay not in those little rectangular bales whose sole purpose was the torture of the indentured servants forced to handle them.

Have done thousands of those little bastards over the years. Then, we got smart.

Still get 20-25 to feed in the trailer and between rounds.

Ten cents a bale between 3 of us, stacked in the barn. Glad to get it in 1969-70, had money to take girls out. 5 bucks would buy her dinner, pay to go to show, gas for truck back then. If you were lucky, you would get lucky! Gas was 20.9 a gallon in 69.


I’m not a 100% sure on the ten cents a bale, that a 100 bill for a thousand bales. That was over 50 years ago.

Hanco, we got a quarter a bale.

Beer money. Gas money.

Young wippersnappers! I never did, but in my day, a penny a bale was a good wage.

Hell,I got to eat all the corn on the cob I wanted, all the fresh sweet cream on berries, and a dip in the farm pond when done. I don't recollect getting any money out of it.

Wow! Good money there.

I got $1.25 an hour during the same time frame. Not sure what that would figure out to per bale. Our gas was 36.9, 35.9 if some station in the big town wanted to draw customers. There was the occasional gas war - remember those?

Gas wars! Our Army Reserve Unit was in Sioux City when a gas war was on.
Gas like, say 25 cents a gallon.

Dan Snider had the credit card, he asked the operator for a truck discount.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT!

It may have been 10 cents apiece-30 cents a bale. The other two boys are dead. 69 and 70 was no fire ants. I hauled a little in 71 after I graduated, fire ants all in the bales. I was done after we got it all out of the field.

We were hauling for George Mitchell of Mitchell Energy. His wife Cynthia made us lunch. The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion is named after her. He could certainly afford 30 cents a bale.

Cheapest that I ever paid was either $0.22 or $0.23 at Timberlane DX in Boone.

Where I grew up, there were a couple of brothers that contract cut, rake, bale, and would haul your hay for you. These fellows would do over 200K bales in a year. They hired us high school fellows to haul. Getting on with them was money in your pocket, but it was work. Sometimes you hauled 7 days a week.

When I started hauling hay, we got a nickle a bale and you used your own truck.... 3 cents a bale if you used the owners truck. I used Dad's long wheel base pu and could haul 42 bales at a time....$2.10 per load. If it was really bad, I'd hire a guy and give him 2 cents and I'd keep 3 cents.

Then it went to a dime using your own truck. For a high school kids, we was making some good money. During the summer, on a average week, you could make $120-$150.

Only time I got 25 cents per bale..... Hauling about 10 miles and had to put it in a loft.

Never had the “opportunity “ as a lad to move bales, but I’ve moved more than a couple the last 42 years since I got my first hoss.


ALL squares are picked up in the field or you’re out of luck or pay high rates. Had to prepare my crew and have them available on short notice. Hay windows here are small and often shut real quick like.

I always wanted to be the driver!

Company I hauled gas for had a station in a war.
It went on for about 2 weeks, they were selling at a loss after 1 week.
We were also in the wrecker business, my boss told the wrecker guys,
"Go over to the station beside ours, buy gas off them after every call.
If the [bleep] want to sell it at a loss, we will gladly buy all we can."

Once the owners realized what was happening, the war was over!

I wanted to be the counter......1, 2, 3, 4........

Too much responsibility!

When you haul by yourself..... you are the driver, counter, loader, stacker, unloader, and barn stacker. You learn to multitask real fast.

When I would hire someone.... I drove and loaded one side, while the helper loaded the other side. It was easier being the helper. In the end, you made about the same money, whether you worked by yourself or had a helper. The helper just made a bad job (stacking in a loft or having to stack really high in a barn) a little easier.

When you hauled hay all summer, two a day practices weren’t cshit. It would kill the fat fuucks that sat in the AC all summer. I loved two a days for that reason. I enjoyed watching the fat boys suffer.

Wasn't too bad bucking bales in the filed and loading them,but once we got to the upper level in the barn closer to that tin roof in late July , it was sure toasty

Counter?

The stack always told the count.

Depending if we went 4 or 5 high w a tie math was pretty simple.

Most of the time, you are correct. . What happens when you are coming out of a bottom field and have to climb a hill and some of the stack fall off the top of the truck or off the trailer. Cant stop on that steep of a hill, got to keep going. Tying it on helps, but sometimes even that doesn't get you to the barn with all the load. You know what you started out with, but not always what you got to the barn with. You learn to always count what you put in the barn, that's what gets you paid.

Fill up a small barn/shed with hay, then move to another..... how many bales are in the smaller barn/shed? Maybe it already had some bales in it, so how many bales did you put in there to top it out? Man that's paying you wants to know, so you have to keep count.