# Bought an old Henry Bale Loader



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

An old time machine but we put up hay pretty old fashioned, often bucking bales by hand.

Towed it home nearly 100 miles, seems to be in good shape.

Some day we will have to standardize our farm! There is a bale thrower, a chute to put bales up on the rack and the regular ground chute. We have kicker racks, flat racks, a bale basket, and an old bale buncher, now add a Henry.

For those that don't know I've attached a pic from the web.


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

I always thought they were really cool machines but I have never seen one at auction. Thanks for the pic


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Pic isn't the one I bought, I took out an ad and had offers of 5 of them within a couple of days. This one was field ready except the tires don't match in diameter. Will fix that tomorrow.


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## bluefarmer (Oct 10, 2010)

I'm old fashion! I use one bales have to be tight. Neighbor borrowed it and didn't work bales to loose, and if tires are slick they will slide!


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Sweet! Would like to see it in action.


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## AndyL (Mar 9, 2013)

We had one of those years ago. Before round bales got popular.


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## gradyjohn (Jul 17, 2012)

AndyL said:


> We had one of those years ago. Before round bales got popular.


Me too. Helps get them on the trailer ... no help in the barn. Years ago I had two gooseneck trailers that would hold 200 bales. I had a goosenecl puller behind our tractor a friend made and with the help of my nephews we had 400 loaded in the field. Our hauler had 400 in the barn. Nowdays I love our accumulator and grabber.


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## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

I used one of those for years. Hook it to a gooseneck and put two guys stacking and you can load a trailer fairly quickly.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Yeah our large dairy barn will hold 8000 bales +/- but you can't drive on the floor so its all manual to put it up in the loft. To be honest that isn't too bad once the wagons are loaded.


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## askinner (Nov 15, 2010)

They are virtually all we used here in Australia before the accumulator and grab came along. We never had throwers. I still have a bale loader like the one you bought, the most common ones around here are NH like this one:


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## Hoghart (May 18, 2013)

slowzuki said:


> An old time machine but we put up hay pretty old fashioned, often bucking bales by hand.
> 
> Towed it home nearly 100 miles, seems to be in good shape.
> 
> ...


I have one, but did not know what brand name...mostly rusty like yours but it is barn kept now. Have not used it in a couple of years.

They aren't perfect, but are way better than having to throw the bales way up to the upper rows on the trailer!!


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I'm hoping some graphite paint on the pressure plate will help the bales ride up the chute better. The rough ruts there now can't be helpful.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I never saw or remember hearing about one until now. Pretty smart.


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## blueridgehay (Dec 25, 2012)

We used one 35 years ago. Was the stuff back in the day. Cut down on labor a lot and made stackin a lot easier. One to two men on a wagon or truck could really go to town with hit.


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## InterLake (Nov 28, 2012)

I am glad I read your post. I had no idea what a Henry loader is. I have one. Around here it was a Pop Up loader. This one is a Malco, made in Winnipeg by a company called Malgren Manufacturing. Dad bought it in the early 1960s to pick little round bales from an A-C Roto-Baler. We took the chain out and put it in backwards so the prongs on the chain would not tear off the twine. We hitched it to the sides of two 20 by 10 racks built on threshing machine wheels. We usually loaded about 168 bales. I was the first person to drive the tractor. I had a steep learning curve. In additon to all the usually things I had to figure out, I had to catch one end of those crossways bales to turn it so it would go into the loader. That experience was helpful 30 years later when I started to learn to operate a NH auto bales wagon. It sure made loading those bales easiere and faster. Dad tied a rope and chain to the back of the baler to catch one end of the bales and turn it. Later he copied the slide that A-C made to slide the bales to the right so there was room for the tractor on the next round with the baler. The slide also turned the bales.­


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## DKFarms (Aug 11, 2008)

Still have the JD version. Haven't used it much since getting the bale band-it but I still have an attachment adapter for every hay trailer I own just in case we need to use it again. Beats throwing bales when the stack gets high.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Henry has been working great he puts up loose tight short long anything that you can get in his mouth. Bales can be on flat or sideways or half tipped over doesn't matter. We still prefer loading racks behind the baler but this lets us load our 27 ft flatbed in a hurry. Once my wife got the hang of driving we were making two laps of the field for every lap the tractor made and it was on a much smaller loop.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Slowzuki,

I'm not sure about the rest of us, but a picture, and perhaps progress report? The picture you originally posted was off the web, no? If you went thought all that trouble and are using this piece of history I would love an update! A video in action would earn extra brownie points


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Just read this - since moving to baskets we haven't played with Henry, likely going to sell him. Actually sold the trailer he was setup for as well.



DSLinc1017 said:


> Slowzuki,
> 
> I'm not sure about the rest of us, but a picture, and perhaps progress report? The picture you originally posted was off the web, no? If you went thought all that trouble and are using this piece of history I would love an update! A video in action would earn extra brownie points


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Wow! That was a long time ago!


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Been off HT for a while, Still trying to get 1st cut in...... been working on building an Ark 2.0!! 
Been nothing but rain here in VT since March....


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I sat down and thought about it, it's already been 14 years I've done hay on my own, my 25th season doing hay since working for other farmers.

It's a bit disappointing in a way, I had a goal of plowing and reseeding all my ground within 5 years, the task of rock picking and rapid expansion has made that impossible for me.

I had planned to bring the fertility up on all the ground, ran into so much opposition to manure application and money constraints for chemical fert and lime that's been slow too.

I'll keep plugging away. We peaked around 160 acres, I'm mowing and leaving at least 20 of that this year and looking to convert 20 to small grain for straw. I've had much better luck selling small squares of straw than hay. Bought straw stumpage a couple of years now and did a couple thousand bales. Like that a lot, no mowing or tedding or raking- just bale it and brings same money as hay.



DSLinc1017 said:


> Wow! That was a long time ago!


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