Square bale stacker

[rockjeep]

Back in the 50s when my dad was young he traveled around South Dakota with a man that made an implement that went on a square baler to stack the bales in a pyramid. Similar to this Zimmie stacker but way before it s time. I was wondering if anyone had any information on something like that or photos.

 

[Hay hay hay]

Go to you tube....put in bale stooker.

 

[DanielW]

Allied and AgraTec (AgraTec was sold under a few names - 'Stevenson' was one of them) were
the most popular around here, and made a 6-bale stook/pyramid. As mentioned, they're
typically called a 'stooker'. I have an AgraTec with the original operator's manual.

They work kind of ok-ish. Sometimes troublesome when going up/down hills, and they don't work
worth a dang on side hills. Have to be adjusted just right for your bale size. The stooks
shed water (in a very limited capacity) and allow the bales to breath and get air around
them. You can pick up the stooks with a stook fork on your front-end loader and carry them -
I have a set of forks that carries two stooks (12 bales) at a time.

The Allied ones were a little more consistent, but had hydraulics. The AgraTec ones were
built a more beefy and used only springs/gravity, but were a little more temperamental to get
set right.

There was a nifty 15 bale one made by Inland - search Google Videos for 'Inland Bale
Stooker' and you'll find a video.

This post was edited by DanielW on 08/31/2022 at 12:56 pm.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

The farmer I worked for during high school had a Agi-Tec bale stooker. Some days, I could do no wrong with that thing, every stook was perfect, other days, Id be off re stacking every stook . Having the bales stacked in the field for a day or two, certainly did help them cool down/dry out some.

 

[caterpillar guy]

I've never understood stacking hay to dry if it was dry enough to bale it was dry enough to put in the barn right behind the baler. If it was not dry enough it will not dry in the bale before it molds. This has been my experience over the last 50 years and it did not matter whether it was loose hay or baled or rolled hay.

 

[paul]

Mostly German families around here.

Everyone had a house full of kids and stacked bales on hay racks and stacked the bales in the barn the same day. Its way too wet around here to leave bales sit
outside, we are darn lucky to get the hay dry and in a dry bale between rains. Even the heavy dew can be hard on a bale sitting outside. A square bale cant soend any
time outdoors around here......

So didnt see much of that kind of thing around here back in the day. Ever.

See a few more now with the type that accumulates 4-8 bales and use a bobcat to stack them on racks.

Paul

 

[flying belgian]

I agree with you Cat guy. If you can't get it dry in the windrow, you certainly will not get it dry in the bale.

 

[DanielW]

Also agreed. I don't think that was ever the true intent of these stookers though; the air around them was more to allow them to dry if they got rained on; not to dry if baled green. I suppose if your hay was almost dry and there was a heavy rain coming on, a case could be made for it.

The real purpose of them was to ease handling - either by being able to move with a loader, or simply to be able to pull the wagon up to several bales at a time if loading from the field. Their main market was probably lone farmers with no one to help stack and no thrower; they could bale an entire field, pick up easier without having to stop/get off every 30 feet, and if they didn't get them all picked up in time they would (kind of) shed water.

I suspect there were few times they were actually worth the trouble, and that's why you see so many of them sitting in fence rows or fetching scrap-tastic prices at auctions. I got mine as a set with my Allis baler - the owner had the original bill of sale from when both were delivered as a pair to his farm. I thought it was kind of neat to have the pair, but I've only used the stooker a few times when baling/picking up by myself. More just because I wanted to try it, than because I thought it added any real benefit.

Maybe they had more applications before round balers or throwers were commonplace, but these days if I don't have time or help enough to get bales loaded on a wagon I'll just roll the rest in rounds.

 

[72supr]

Our neighbor had one it was called a Stooker Stacker. Three in a pyramid. Like was mentioned it was for ease of handling and not for drying the hay.

 

[mattshup]

i have a ton of pictures of our 15 bale inland automatic stooker but this forum is not allowing me to post them saying its spam.

This post was edited by mattshup on 09/05/2022 at 02:07 pm.

 

[mattshup]

here's one at least.

 

[Tony in SD]

I still have one that I dont use anymore. It is for sale. Email open. They were not meant to dry the bale, rather to keep them dry during/after a rain. Also the strings never touched the ground which
also helped if you were stacking bales in the field with a Farmhand F10 loader. The twine would not get caught in the loader teeth/tines while bucking bales. Sometimes the steel bucker teeth/tines
would develop sharp edges and cut the twine.

 

[Matt(NEIA)]

I would rather put hay up that's a little
wet than let it rot in the field and still
have to bale it to get it off. Of course
this is in iowa, wet humid summers are
tough to get hay made. Dad tells stories
of stacking hay in the loft and putting
down huge amounts of salt inbetween each
layer of hay as they were stacking. I
guess the elevators back in those days 40+
years ago kept it on hand for such use.
It is foreign to those who live in dry
climates to think about putting up even
damp hay! Haha