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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Feeding the Cows

This is my not so pretty/but handy round bale mover....
I purchased it at a farm auction some time ago, I'm pretty sure it's homemade...but heck, it works just fine. :)








I back up to a bale...making sure I have one tine on each side....




Lift the bale using the wench...


Move it to the pasture.....


Let the bale down....parking it on the top of a little hill.....

I remove the netting from the bale....



I unroll some of the grass, making the bale easy to push over the little hill......


Next I give the bale a big shove........ and it unrolls as it rolls down the hill............. :)


Some of the cows butt the bale with their heads to make it unroll even farther.....


The horses and cows line up along the unrolled feed to eat.....

They are happy and I'm happy. lol :)


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yup its home made. But if it works it works, nothing wrong with that. A couple of years ago I was going to go buy a hydraulic lift for my flatbed and after I saw the price I decided not to buy. I eventually got all the parts at auctions and other sales and made my own.

But on my John Deere I have a bale lift on the three point hitch and then another bale lift for the front end loader attachment. Got them for both tractors.

The one on my truck I can take off and put on as I need. So it doesn't get used much, its more of a back up.

Here's the thing though with those hitch mounted bale lifts. Around here we have a lot of hay thefts. its always people with those hitch mounts that do the theiving. So if you see somebody not familiar in the area with one alarms and phone calls start getting past around. I got a pasture I rent just for hay 4 miles from here. I have had a lot of pilfering over the last 2 years there. Its in another county and the Sherrif there hasn't been much help. I volunteered my time and firepower to resolve it and he gave a not so nice invite to not go back into the law enforcment business. Too bad, I got rights to protect property too.

Hey you have fun down there. Warming up now, lets hope the cold dry stuff is about all gone for the next 8 to 9 months.

cowgirl said...

Shoot, that's too bad about the thieving going on up there. I haven't heard of any hay missing, but we've had a few horse and cattle thefts in the area.

Pays to keep a mean bull in the pasture.. lol or ornery horses that won't load into a trailer. :)

Nate said...

Cowgirl,

Where are the trees? What do you do for firewood?

Anonymous said...

Yea, mean bull, almost all are. A couple of years ago my neighbor had some cattle thieves stop by his place. They were kicked to almost death by his llama.

cowgirl said...

Nate, there are trees... I'll try to get some pictures for ya. :)

cowgirl said...

Yep, llamas are good too Dave!
My neighbor has several of them.
They also keep the coyotes at bay.
:)

Unknown said...

I wish my cows would help unroll....lol, they are happy just eating an unrolled bale

cowgirl said...

Hi Brad! Good to see ya.

I think my cows help so the horses can't keep the bale for themselves. :)