Round Bale Mover

by Benjamin S. Brubaker of Lewisburg, KY

Because round bales are the cheapest way to buy hay for beef cows, and because I was tired of trying to roll the bales out by hand or wrapping a chain around them and skidding them out with a horse (if you ever tried to drag a bale with a chain, you know how hard it is to get the chain on and how easy it slips off), I undertook to build a bale mover.

I had several different designs I considered, even one that would haul two bales.

In the end I let economy and availability of materials be the deciding factor. Even so I built it mostly from scratch, I mean “scrap.” Had I been able to locate an old baler or combine axle or any other axle that is wide enough and strong enough it would have been simpler. Maybe.

I wanted to build where I could haul up to six foot bales so that means 1500 plus pounds, also consider prancing horses, eager to trot over frozen ruts on a cold winter day. This might almost double the strain of the bale on the spear.

Anyway my neighbor had two old manure spreader wheels that he wanted to get rid of, so I bought them. (He got them from the City salvage yard.) I didn’t have an axle and a regular manure spreader axle is too short. I wanted at least six feet clearance between the wheels, so I bought a new 1 ¾” x eight foot long hot rolled steel round bar. The wheels don’t have bearings or bushings so I bolted the one wheel to the axle, solid so the axle turns with the wheels. I bolted only one wheel so I can still turn without one wheel slipping.

Then I took schedule 80 steel pipe and slipped it over the axle between the wheels and every thing else is fastened to the pipes. I used a total of seven feet of pipe, a sixteen-inch piece at each end where the tongue pulls on and the middle piece is for the spear. I put grease necks in the middle of each pipe.

I made the tongue and braces out of oak 2 x 6’s and bolted them together using steel reinforcing where I thought necessary. I used ¼” by 2” flat bar to make the clevises on the axle.

For the spear I wanted more welding surface so I had a 24” piece of 6” C channel welded to the pipe first, then the 68” long 2”x2” tubing welded to it.

The spear, an old truck axle, is 36” off the ground when horizontal. It is fastened to the 2-inch square heavy walled tubing by burning a hole all the way through the tubing and inserting the spear, then welded and braced with a small triangle of scrap steel.

I made the tongue nine feet long to help counter balance the weight of the bale. But for heavy bales it should be longer, or you need to stack some cement blocks on the forecart. (Or get your wife to stand on the cart while you jack up the bale.)

I use a half-ton come-a-long for the winch but bigger, might in this case, be better.

I want to add a stop to keep the bale from coming forward over center.

This whole rig cost me a little over a hundred dollars but if you have your own welder and some old equipment parts, you might build it with no money out of your pocket.