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The empty round bale feeder after the animals have gone through a whole bale - about two weeks
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Picking up a 6ft diameter round bale with our little tractor, using a Worksaver Clamp-on Bale spear.
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The bale is held and lifted by the bale spear.
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The hinged panel is removed from the feeder.
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The bale is placed into the feeder.
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Another view of loading the bale with our tractor.
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Once the bale is in and before lowering, we cut and remove the webbing so the animals don't eat it or get entangled.
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The bale is lowered into the feeder.
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The tractor is moved back.
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And the hinged gate is replaced, which is held by two lynch pins. Newer models have a latch with a swing out gate so no removal is necessary.
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Takes less than 2 minutes from the time we start the
tractor to finish and feeds our animals for about two weeks (13 llamas
and 3 horses in the pasture pictured here). After getting the
tractor going, we spike a round bale, drive over to the
feeder, unlatch the side, which swings open. We place the bale into the feeder, cutting and
removing the webbing (or twine) from the bale before lowering the bale
completely into the feeder
(so the animals don't try to eat or get entangled in the webbing/twine).
After the webbing/twine is removed, we drop the bale and swing the side
closed and latch it. The door can be completely removed by simply
removing the hinge pins.
