"Unbaler” for feeding out hay

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33940, 5 September 1975, Page 6

"Unbaler” for feeding out hay

The Agricultural Engineering Institute at Lincoln now has an Unbaler to feed out the big round hay bales weighing from 1000 to 15001 b which are made by some eight different makes of machines.

The Unbaler is made by Midwest Industries Incorporated, of Ida Grove, lowa, in the United States. Tullochs, of Masterton, are the agents for it. The device is mounted on the back of the tractor and is hydraulically operated Two sets of remote controls are required. The big bale is impaled between two cones and a roller or drum with a series of vanes about fin deep, which is powered by a small hydraulic motor, rotates the bale and peels off the hay. Tire roller is about half the width of the bale which is about sft wide. On average the bale is fed out in about two minutes in a continuous series of small heaps in lines along the ground. With meadow hay a big bale has been fed out over a distance of about 680 yards, but with lucerne hay the feed out line is more like 450 to 500 yards, according to Mr j. S. Dunn, principal research officer of the institute. Apart from cutting the strings on the bale before starting to feed out, the A

tractor driver has only to dismount again at the end of the operation to remove a small core of hay amounting to one or two conventional bales, which is left on the cones. This remnant is smallest with lucerne hay.

For feeding across a fence or into a trough, the bales can be pivoted over. For carting big bales in from the field, Mr T. H. Pratt, a technician at the institute who is seen on the tractor, has conceived the idea of a tubular frame

a for a trailer to give a more e stable load and which abtmt doubles the load — i for every sft of deck [. length three bales are » carried. These are carried t longs ways on in a clover i leaf formation with one bale e on top of two.