How to turn a round haylage bale upright?

melle said:
You 'rock' them upright. Push one end and allow it to bounce back slightly towards you then push again as it heads away from you. After 2 or 3 pushes you'll be able to push it upright.
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This, I used to help my neighbour do it. It only works if you don’t laugh though! All go’s wrong if someone laughs
 
They are not easy IMHO. If you can get whoever delivers to drop them onto a pallet end on, then we use a elderly second hand (£50 from ebay) hand pallet truck to move them around.

We used to get 5-6 delivered at a time and they were all stacked outside on individual pallets in wrap until they came in one by one to be unwrapped.

Without more muscle I would go for the ratchet strap and vehicle (car, tractor, quad etc.) option. Even a horse broken to drive could be hitched up for 2 mins to do it.
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
Please please please if trying to move one of these bales on your own then just do not do it! Get some help.

I seem to recall a woman was killed on a deserted yard somewhere a few years back now when she was trying to heave one around on her own.
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They are dangerous things, they can get up quite some speed and are very heavy.
 
I don't have large bales these days but remember the rocking method well, if you get some good momentum it isn't too difficult. Do you have any non-horsey friends you can borrow to help you? Heavy lifting doesn't require any horse related skills, I often rope in my wider group of friends for hay stacking and the like.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
They certainly could here! Our yard is on a slope. Ours are sometimes delivered on a trailer, lying on their side, farmer pushes them off and if they don't land the right way up it takes him and his partner and one of us to stand them up.

MrsM, what is a Balemate? That sounds interesting/useful.
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It's a one of these:

horse feeders Aberdeenshire | cattle feeders Aberdeenshire | sheep feeders Aberdeenshire | calf feeders Aberdeenshire | goat feeders Aberdeenshire

The Balemate animal bale feeder designed for conserving valuable feed and keeping animals that eat it safe. Suitable for many different types of livestock.
www.balemate.co.uk

They're grand. Means no more bale netting to risk getting a tooth caught or eaten (balemate goes around, then you whip the netting off). Easy to manouver on one's own, don't fly away in a high wind, and so far are surviving an itchy cob's attentions...

We have two of the big hay rounds and two of the smaller ones (the latter go in the wee paddocks). You can use a bale net or leave it nekked - there's so little waste that I don't net, would only do o if needed to restric intake.
 
splashgirl45 said:
Maybe I am thick but how does that help you to get the bale standing up and how do you get the bale into it?
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Doesn't need to stand up if you can't get it up, just flip the Balemate over the bale, take the netting off the bale and it's good to go. Ours are all on their ends as I had the D to do it with me, but I'm pretty sure the Balemate will fit over one on its side - I'll check tomorrow as have new bales to go in the paddocks.
 
MrsMozart said:
Doesn't need to stand up if you can't get it up, just flip the Balemate over the bale, take the netting off the bale and it's good to go. Ours are all on their ends as I had the D to do it with me, but I'm pretty sure the Balemate will fit over one on its side - I'll check tomorrow as have new bales to go in the paddocks.
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Unfortunately that wouldn't be any use here. The bales are delivered to the yard, where the horses are never loose. We take haylage off the bale to feed to the animals. The discontinued revolving board also wouldn't help here as the bale would have to be dropped with precision into exactly the right place.

If the bale is on its side how do you remove the netting from the underside?
 
I helped two girls at the yard move a big round bale that was up against a wall... A very inconvenient place, but there were five bales at that end of the yard and to leave space to get around the first three were pushed against the wall like that.

We rocked it until we could topple it over, then rolled it about two metres to where we could rock it back upright.

The weather had been very dry that week, I got dust and a bit of hay in my throat and coughed until I thought my lungs were coming out of my mouth.

Lesson: wear a mask!
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Unfortunately that wouldn't be any use here. The bales are delivered to the yard, where the horses are never loose. We take haylage off the bale to feed to the animals. The discontinued revolving board also wouldn't help here as the bale would have to be dropped with precision into exactly the right place.

If the bale is on its side how do you remove the netting from the underside?
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I'd cut along two sides, as low as possible, remove. When eaten down a bit easy enough to whip the last bit out.
 
Thank you so much for all the advice! I tried using it on its side & found that this does actually work! I had one round bale ages ago when the stables etc were in the process of being built, my tatty old buildings had been removed and I had zero storage. What I was trying to do was remove as little wrapping as possible so as to keep it protected from the elements (this was hay, not haylage so less compunction to use it quickly) and trying to pull it out through a small hole really didn't work. It's this experience that made me think that it was going to be a lot more drama than it actually is!
 
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