Silage Bales Unrollers

We have a bale feeder/unroller on a New Holland TL70 without front weights but it manages fine.

Initially we had a machine made in the north east of the island. We bought it direct from the manufacturer, but straightaway we were having problems with the chains coming off the sprockets when it was ran on one direction with a bale on it. When it ran the other way, it ran fine. The support from the manufacturer was awful, and the best they offered was they would look at it if we shipped it back to them, at our expense (which we did not take them up on) One of the main problems with that particular machine is the thickness of the sprocket material is not enough, and they are welded on to the shafted. We found out later that this is a known problem and not straightforward to fix.

We replaced it with a Bridgeway and are very pleased with it. It is heavier than the previous machine. It is much heavier duty construction but the TL is fine on level ground with silage bales. We feed chopped bales and it takes the hardship out of feeding.

Why don’t you get the bales chopped when baling? Baler won’t do it I assume?

What way does it handle flattened bales. Say the bottom bale when they are stacked 3 high

I have been running a hustler for the last 3 weeks so here my take on them

First bale i set on ….. cut the wrapping off on the top half as your suppose to do and then turn her over to take the rest of the wrap off… this worked a charm for the first bale but it has never work out like that since. I have figured out a new way of doing it but it is what it is.

Be prepared to get in an out of the tractor more often

Takes a few goes to get the travel speed right so that you lay out an even amount

Hydraulic top link is a must

I am taking from a 3 high stack of bales, no issue unrolling the bottom bale with a flat bottom as long as you have the side rollers to keep it on the unroller.

Haven't any wet heavy bales this year so cant comment on this but they could be an issue to get them to rolled out.

I would love to have put it on our front loader but our tractor is not big enough for this (85hp)

In general the bales have been coming out even enough when it comes near to the end of the bale it can throw out a lump but its nothing major.

I have very little graping to do bar throwing in when they have ate in front of them but I will make a pusher for the front loader to deal with this.

In terms of speed it is slightly quicker so far (getting better at it now) than the way I done it before which was using the front loader with a 2 pin spike, cut wrapping off, lift bale and use loader to shake out while reversing back until the bottom half fell off and then pulled the rest apart with loader and then graped all out even in front of barrier. The unroller will save the wear on the front axle as it isnt a good job bouncing a bale with the loader to shake it out.

The hustler is well made and bar a few grease nipples there isn't much to service or go wrong. I wont be getting rid of it thats for sure.

JFH - Did you read what I wrote - its all there

Feed every 2nd day usually, but it depends. The cows will go through silage quicker and may get a bale every day. Hustlers are good quality. Can't comment on the other bale unroller manufacturers. I think it depends on your shed layout if you need the unroller over a bale splitter. If you've a central passage way and feeding stock both sides of the passage way then the unroller is a good job. If your sheds are such where you can back a tractor up perpendicular to the feed barrier and manoeuvre then a mchale bale splitter works good too. Bit more graping with a bale shears if you dont mind that and if its a tight area a 2wd tractors is better as its more manoeuvreable. Ifarmwefarm the youtuber uses a bale splitter on his farm. A 2nd hand hustler sl350 would be my recommendation

Straw chopper / blower outside budget? That would really save you manual labour

Surprised people are still using net (in general I see it mentioned in other threads too), it’s all barrel wrap with contractors around us for quite a few years. We have only ever used the hustler with barrel wrap but looking at people online using net it’s extra work when you have net to deal with.

We use the front loader rather than the rear spikes. Pick up a bale and cut the top and bottom off (fold the plastic onto the spikes the side it’s picked up). This keeps the bale together and it can be left into the hustler. One cut each side as far down as possible and take off the majority of the remaining wrap.

Then feed the bale and the last bit of wrap can be picked out of the fed silage easily as it’s in one piece.

A hustler would be in the region of 8.5k new.

No comparison imo especially when feeding in a back to back shed. You can’t put a bale in front of each pen or you would have massive waste so you are still left either forking or knocking it around with the loader which is doable in a single shed but messy in a back to back.

Same for the splitter probably works ok in an open shed but a lot of twisting and turning and no way you avoid forking. We feed one bale to 6 pens at a time a lot of messing to do that any other way and we find this method very good to minimise waste. In our other old single shed we used to unroll one bale with the loader along the length of it before we got the hustler.

An unroller and a pusher you can a pick up with the front loader pretty much totally eliminates any forking silage and keeps fresh silage in front of stock.

There is probably one extra getting out of the tractor vs a more traditional way of putting out the bale but that time is more than made back with how fast the bale is fed out and the saving on your back from no forking.

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/news/news/manufacture-of-pushover-silage-feeder-to-stop-529163

Pushed over silage before any 3 point linkage implements. Still has a place in certain houses

If youve a reasonably strong tractor and front loader i think a Tanco bale shear maybe worth considering. It would be worth gettinga demo bale unroller and / or bale shears from a local dealer and see what suits your set up best @IFarmWeFarm7615 had a demo bale shears in a youtube video that may be worth a look