# Accumagrapple or Grapalator?



## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

Has anyone on here used one of these in a real world situation? I use a baler with a kicker and kicker wagons now, I have 5 wagons and trade some back and forth with my friends. My goal here is to try to be semi efficient and self sufficient at getting a van trailer loaded from the barn without trying to get a couple guys pulled together. Barns won't fit stack wagon and I already have skidloaders. My wife is a teacher so since she is off summers and is open to the idea of running the skidloader doing the accumulating and stacking on wagons. My hope is to be able to have 700 bales loaded in under say 4 hours easily. The theory then is I stack in the barn and when it's time to load out I would have a system like shown at the end of the video I've attached a link to 



 I do timothy hay and wheat straw which is kinda short slippery stuff so you have to take it easy on the bales.


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

I've looked at using grapples to load trailers with as well. The folks in the video did just what I was thinking of doing by forming a block of bales behind the trailer and then pushing them in. I could see either doing it the way they did with a bracket of some sort on the tractor or by having a forklift fitted with a bale grab the would tilt up vertically once the stack was formed. Steffen Systems make a pretty good selection of bale grabs and there are many other companies out there that build grabs too (Steffans are the only ones I seen with the forklift style though).


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I looked at a accumulator/grapple that goes on a skid steer before deciding to go completely rounds.

It sounds like you would still be using the kicker and wagons to get the hay to the barn, then stacking into the barn with a grapple?

If you did it that way then stacking in the barn would be as simple as making groups out of what you hauled to the barn in the wagons. Since they would be stacked with the grapple then you could use that to load about any type trainer you wanted. It seems like it would make stacking the barn a lot easier as well.

Off topic a little but talking about accumulators a little.

I really liked the idea of the accumulator/grapple on the front of the skid steer. The one I looked at could gather 10 bales in a hurry. The man said he could also unload a trailer with it. I did not witness that.

Another neat adaption I saw was an accumulator being pulled by a 4 wheeler. This was on terraced ground and the owner did not want the accumulator dumping on terraces. He had his son gather the bales with the accumulator and 4 wheeler. He dumped each group at the end of a terrace, on a flat spot. They were not driving all over the field picking up 10 bales at a time. Pretty neat to see.


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

Tim/South said:


> It sounds like you would still be using the kicker and wagons to get the hay to the barn, then stacking into the barn with a grapple?


Would drop the kicker and accumulate out of the field with skiddy and grapple is the idea.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

cmd said:


> Would drop the kicker and accumulate out of the field with skiddy and grapple is the idea.


The Long Grapalator I saw was like this one.






The man said he could also unload with it. I noticed the comments on this one said you could not, but they had a newer version with removable bars that could also be used to unload and stack in the barn.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

What type of barn do you store your hay in?


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

8350HiTech said:


> What type of barn do you store your hay in?


Bank barn then overflow into pole barn. 3 of the 4 mows are skid loader friendly.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

cmd said:


> Bank barn then overflow into pole barn. 3 of the 4 mows are skid loader friendly.


But how deep can you stack with the loader? That's a lot of overhead volume to be sacrificing (unless you're not stacking very deep now). Just a consideration.


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

Do you mean height? I have seen some grapples made to lift high and I have two loaders. Normally stack to the top of the beams, not much more, elevator is tough getting much higher the way the barn is.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

cmd said:


> Do you mean height? I have seen some grapples made to lift high and I have two loaders. Normally stack to the top of the beams, not much more, elevator is tough getting much higher the way the barn is.


Height, depth ... just depends on whether you're standing on too of the hay pile or on the barn floor  This might seem silly, but you might take advantage of more of your storage with a stackwagon dumping in the barn floor and transferring by hand into the mows. Get it put in quick and move it over while it's raining. Doesn't help you load a van, though.


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

8350HiTech said:


> Height, depth ... just depends on whether you're standing on too of the hay pile or on the barn floor  This might seem silly, but you might take advantage of more of your storage with a stackwagon dumping in the barn floor and transferring by hand into the mows. Get it put in quick and move it over while it's raining. Doesn't help you load a van, though.


That's the thing, I normally have quite a few wagons at a time and can normally fill them all and have a day or two to get them unloaded. The thing is being able to pull the help together on semi trailers. I have seen some pull type stack wagons reasonable. I suppose if I got the right size I could move the piles with a grapple on the skid loader and transfer into trucks that way. I am thinking I could convert and old semi trailer to make a chute to push into trailers like the video.

Have you ever loaded a trailer from the rear with a grapple and hand stacked the top layer then pushed it in with the loader. I wonder what kind of force that would take once your pushing 40 worth of hay.


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

I can never get a straight answer. Every thread I read half say they work great and half say they pick up dirt and stuff. I guess it all depends on your soil type and stubble height. Im not taking a chance on it. My friend did we will see how it works for him next year because he just bought it. Im going to buy a kuhn or build one similar to a kuhn.


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## Guest (Jan 14, 2014)

I Run a stackwagon to fill my main barn. this works by far the best. ITs quick and I can load semis with my Stephen bale hand without touching a single bale. I also fill a barn mow just because I need the room and I have a old barn sitting there so I fill it. What I will do is have one guy in the mow forming bale wagon tiers and I grab them out of the mow and push into the van trailer. I had to make my mow door slightly bigger to fit my bale hand. This has several benefits. First it eliminates about two men. When I only need one in the mow and me in the loader and the guy in the mow only has to arrange them in a one high bale wagon tier compared to throwing them into a van trailer then stacking them 6 high in the van trailer. Doing a van trailer completely by hand takes at least 3-4 men. Another advantage is a using a teleandler you can get a whole extra row of bales In because it pushes them tighter together thatn stacking them by hand. Just an idea if your trying to make a bale hand work in the mow... Hope it made sense.


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

bbos said:


> I Run a stackwagon to fill my main barn. this works by far the best. ITs quick and I can load semis with my Stephen bale hand without touching a single bale. I also fill a barn mow just because I need the room and I have a old barn sitting there so I fill it. What I will do is have one guy in the mow forming bale wagon tiers and I grab them out of the mow and push into the van trailer. I had to make my mow door slightly bigger to fit my bale hand. This has several benefits. First it eliminates about two men. When I only need one in the mow and me in the loader and the guy in the mow only has to arrange them in a one high bale wagon tier compared to throwing them into a van trailer then stacking them 6 high in the van trailer. Doing a van trailer completely by hand takes at least 3-4 men. Another advantage is a using a teleandler you can get a whole extra row of bales In because it pushes them tighter together thatn stacking them by hand. Just an idea if your trying to make a bale hand work in the mow... Hope it made sense.


How do you get the top layer in the trailer


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## Guest (Jan 14, 2014)

I call it a bale stand. I built a platform on a running gear that is the same height as the fith row. I set the fifth row tier on the stand and then push it in so i have all the room not having to worry about hitting the semi roof. Repeat on top row . It was cheap and easy to build. If i remember ill take a picture and post


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

Please post them pictures, I'm surely not the only one who wants to see.


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## Guest (Jan 14, 2014)

Ill be loading later in the week. I will post some then


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

bbos said:


> Ill be loading later in the week. I will post some then


 awesome


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2014)

Sorry i forgot to take pictures when i was loading. But i took some pictures today. So basically fill the trailer 4 high then back the semi against the bale stand. Now put your 5th row tiers on the stand outside the truck and push them in off of the bale stand. Then when the van trailer has its 5th row full leave one tier on the bale stand so you can set the top tier on top of that. And finish the trailer out from there. Also remember some trailers are taller than others. Sometimes you can fit the rop in on edge but sometimes you need to flip them flat like i did in this picture. I always just double check. Most will fit the bales on edge


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2014)

Whoops attached the photos backwards. Look at them from right to left


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

Interesting. Now do you put in a complete layer front to back at a time or do you stack grapple loads to the ceiling then push that whole cube in? I assume the first way I said. How are you getting the bales different directions? Do you have someone on the ground arranging bales for the grapple?


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2014)

I put one layer in at a time. Im prerty sure you can get more in a load by doin it the way i do. But ive never done it the other way. I think its faster to do one layer at a time too because if you build a block you have to stop and use another machine to push it in. And besides that you have to have a loading dock, where as i do it all from the driveway by myself.

When you get to the fith layer i some times stack both the fifth and sixth layer on the bale stand and push both in when i set another layer in. Repeat till full. Or just do the entire fifth row then the top row just like you would do the first four rows of the trailer.

As far as the 2 flat on the side i like to do that if i have time or like you said an extra hand. All you do is flip the right or left 2 bales. Not real hard. This will benifit you in a couple ways. First the bales fit much tighter so they slide in easier because they dont get crooked and push harder. Second benifet is you get an extra 2 bales in on every row on the flat side. I posted a topic couple moths ago called "loading semi van trailers" which kinda explains this too. However when im in a hurry i just put balewagon teirs in all on edge and then i dont touch a bale.

http://www.haytalk.com/forums/topic/20890-loading-semi-van-trailers/?hl=semi


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

This has all given me ideas. I am wondering if a guy with a fork, (I'm sure they are different names everywhere but a pitch fork bent 90 degrees) which works well for pulling bales down from mow and around on floor, if a guy could arrange bales fast enough with one of those to be grabbing with grapple and feeding trailer.


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2014)

cmd said:


> This has all given me ideas. I am wondering if a guy with a fork, (I'm sure they are different names everywhere but a pitch fork bent 90 degrees) which works well for pulling bales down from mow and around on floor, if a guy could arrange bales fast enough with one of those to be grabbing with grapple and feeding trailer.


Even if you cant keep up with the loader it would still be easier and would require less people. Is there anyway of just picking out of the mow with your loader. It would be one less step of getting them outta the mow


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

The way I load trailers now is to have the trailer backed up to the barn door and then run an elevator into the back. The distance from the door to the edge of the mow is just right for me to put the "bottom" of the elevator underneath the haymow floor (resting on the ceiling of the lower level of the barn) and have a foot or two sticking into the trailer. With 2 people in the mow and 3 or 4 people in the trailer, we can get a load out in just over 1.5 hours (2 hours if we take a couple water breaks).

The only advantage I see to the way I currently do it over using the bale grab to carry the bales out is that if it is raining or snowing, the hay isn't exposed to the weather. However, I would gladly trade the way I'm doing it now for a pole barn and just back the end of the trailer in if needed just to avoid the hassle of putting together a hay crew. I have a great bunch of people that help out, but sometimes they are busy with their own farms and it gets tough to have enough people there.

Bbos, I really like your setup and I may end up doing something similar myself eventually. I'm assuming that you have a bale grab that is made to pick up 6 bales wide? The only problem I see with my setup is I have a 1033 bale wagon that forms tiers that are 5 bales wide. If I remember correctly you have a SP bale wagon that stacks tiers 6 bales wide, so this probably isn't an issue to you. Still working on a way to fix this little puzzle. I may have one, but it involves buying two bale grabs, so it isn't the best.


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2014)

Josh in WNY said:


> The way I load trailers now is to have the trailer backed up to the barn door and then run an elevator into the back. The distance from the door to the edge of the mow is just right for me to put the "bottom" of the elevator underneath the haymow floor (resting on the ceiling of the lower level of the barn) and have a foot or two sticking into the trailer. With 2 people in the mow and 3 or 4 people in the trailer, we can get a load out in just over 1.5 hours (2 hours if we take a couple water breaks).
> 
> The only advantage I see to the way I currently do it over using the bale grab to carry the bales out is that if it is raining or snowing, the hay isn't exposed to the weather. However, I would gladly trade the way I'm doing it now for a pole barn and just back the end of the trailer in if needed just to avoid the hassle of putting together a hay crew. I have a great bunch of people that help out, but sometimes they are busy with their own farms and it gets tough to have enough people there.
> 
> Bbos, I really like your setup and I may end up doing something similar myself eventually. I'm assuming that you have a bale grab that is made to pick up 6 bales wide? The only problem I see with my setup is I have a 1033 bale wagon that forms tiers that are 5 bales wide. If I remember correctly you have a SP bale wagon that stacks tiers 6 bales wide, so this probably isn't an issue to you. Still working on a way to fix this little puzzle. I may have one, but it involves buying two bale grabs, so it isn't the best.


Yeah i have an sp bale wagon and a 6 wide bale grab. As for your setup i think that could work. If you set your balewagon stacks as strait as you can you could maybe use a 6 wide bale grab. When grabing a stack grab the first row of the back stack. Only dificult part is when you get to the tie tier. Just climb up and trow that tier off and continue. 
Another option would be to tie your tie tier with a rope or twine. I read about this in the pinned balewagon operation thread. Basically all you do is instead of making a tie tier you just make a normal tier and tie twine all the way around it. If you do this your balewagon would certainly work for a bale grab because your whole barn of bales would be facing the same way. I have never tried any of this with my balehand i just like to think about things. But i dont see why it wouldnt work


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## cmd (Oct 26, 2012)

Josh in WNY said:


> The way I load trailers now is to have the trailer backed up to the barn door and then run an elevator into the back. The distance from the door to the edge of the mow is just right for me to put the "bottom" of the elevator underneath the haymow floor (resting on the ceiling of the lower level of the barn) and have a foot or two sticking into the trailer. With 2 people in the mow and 3 or 4 people in the trailer, we can get a load out in just over 1.5 hours (2 hours if we take a couple water breaks).
> 
> The only advantage I see to the way I currently do it over using the bale grab to carry the bales out is that if it is raining or snowing, the hay isn't exposed to the weather. However, I would gladly trade the way I'm doing it now for a pole barn and just back the end of the trailer in if needed just to avoid the hassle of putting together a hay crew. I have a great bunch of people that help out, but sometimes they are busy with their own farms and it gets tough to have enough people there.
> 
> Bbos, I really like your setup and I may end up doing something similar myself eventually. I'm assuming that you have a bale grab that is made to pick up 6 bales wide? The only problem I see with my setup is I have a 1033 bale wagon that forms tiers that are 5 bales wide. If I remember correctly you have a SP bale wagon that stacks tiers 6 bales wide, so this probably isn't an issue to you. Still working on a way to fix this little puzzle. I may have one, but it involves buying two bale grabs, so it isn't the best.


Maybe not a problem for you but I have a hard time orchestrating 6 guys to show up all at once. I got to problem loading a trailer by hand if there are enough guys.


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

cmd said:


> Maybe not a problem for you but I have a hard time orchestrating 6 guys to show up all at once. I got to problem loading a trailer by hand if there are enough guys.


The only reason it isn't a problem for me anymore is I have about a dozen guys that I call. Also, 6 people gives me an "extra" person in case somebody can't make it at the last minute. The other trick is I try and schedule all my loads to be picked up on a weekend. There has been a couple times where we loaded out with 4 guys and that gets to be a long and heavy load by the end of the trailer. I would greatly prefer to be able to load trailers by myself with a grab, but I'm just not there yet with the equipment or buildings (mainly the buildings).

Another thing to consider is that I'm only loading out 5 or so loads a year and all during the non-haying months (Nov through April). I'm sure some guys on this site are doing that much in a week or a month and maybe all year long, so it would make a lot of sense in their case to be much more mechanized. As usual, take a look at everyone's ideas and figure out what works best for you (or come up with something new).


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2014)

Here are better pictures


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Nice buildings also.... 

Regards, Mike


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2014)

Thanks mike!


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## Texas Mark (Jul 12, 2014)

I have a Grapalator and have found some interesting issues I didn't expect after watching the company videos. Firstly, It will not pick up the front two bales that are sideways unless you approach the stack of 10 bales from the opposite direction. (positioning the sideways bales at the back, or closest to the tractor) I even added two extra hooks on each side (in the front) to add surface area to the grapple. This didn't work. The hay I work with is tightly packed coastal bermuda. This issue makes it very difficult to make a stable stack on the trailer especially without having access to both sides of the trailer in the hayfield. Secondly, when using the unit as an accumulator, I haven't experienced any issues with bales being destroyed or with picking up dirt or debris when pushing them around the pasture. Pushing the bales seems to work fine. What I have noticed is that when the field is not flat as a table top the rails in the accumulator tend to rise above the hay allowing it to shift around as you pass over the variations in the terrain. When the ground levels out again, as you are pushing the bales, the dividers go back down on the crooked bales and break them apart or make a big mess that causes you to stop, move the grapple and straighten them out by hand.

Hope this helps.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Where you been Mark....long time no see.


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## Texas Mark (Jul 12, 2014)

Sorry Vol, I am new to Haytalk. Never posted anything here before.


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## bhamrick (Jan 4, 2013)

Texas Mark we have the WR long grapalator as well and have had the exact same issues that you spoke about. Here we don't have perfectly flat ground either and while using to accumulate the bales it makes it difficult like you said with the bales getting out of place when crossing even the smallest of terraces or hills. I finally got to the point of just grabbing each bale and carrying instead of sliding to the next and repeating until it was full. I did away with trying to pick up 10 and now just grab 4 on the end for a total of 12 bales. While definitely slower this way it has helped with not destroying the bales when crossing uneven ground. We had the grapalator mounts for a tractor and a skid steer. The skid steer was by far easier to use the grapalator on. I keep racking my brain with how to modify the grapalator to float on the ground with wheels so that it would follow the contour of the ground. Only problem I see is the wheels being in the way when you are trying to load a trailer. As far as using the grapalator for loading and unloading or stacking in barn so far Ive been happy for the most part. My wife and I are pretty much it when it comes to getting hay cut baled and in the barn so while not perfect it has absolutely saved us time from having to manually handle each and every bale. At some point some sort of accumulator behind the baler would probably be worth the investment tho. Just scared as to which one would work given our uneven terrain.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Texas Mark said:


> Sorry Vol, I am new to Haytalk. Never posted anything here before.


Sorry about that Texas Mark.....we have another....he spells his member name Texasmark....I thought you were him and I did not catch the spelling difference. Anyway, welcome to Haytalk!

Regards, Mike


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Welcome to haytalk Texas Mark! I also thought you were texasmark.....


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## Texas Mark (Jul 12, 2014)

I will have to start accumulating by fours too (bhamrick) that sounds like good information. At least until I can afford something better. Accumulating with the Long grapple is very time consuming.


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## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

Texas Mark said:


> I have a Grapalator and have found some interesting issues I didn't expect after watching the company videos.


Thanks for the first hand account. Those YouTube videos make it look real easy - a skid steer zipping along accumulating bales. Several posts have been made on Haytalk about these out front type of accumulators, but I think yours is the first time someone has posted with actual experience.


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## yarnammurt (Jan 1, 2014)

I have put up 2500+ bales this year with the accumagrapple . And if the field is not level you will have problems. Very hard to accumulate if the ground is just slightly uneven. Loading and unloading is not bad, Looking at something else to make it faster. Better than hand loading but that's about it. Now if you had a flat top style accumulator if would be faster.


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