# E Z Trail Bale Baskets



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Has anyone ever used the ez trail bale basket? If you did not have a thrower on your baler, would this be a viable option?


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

I looked at them some time back. They solve the problem of getting the bales out of the field. The problem I saw with them is that when it's full you have to pull the baler and basket to the shed, dump them, and go back and bale some more. Or...you need multiple baskets and another tractor to haul the full one to the shed while you are hooking up another empty one. Once you dump it, you still have to sort through the pile and hand stack in the shed. For a very small operation it might be worthwhile but, it looked like too much trouble, for too little benefit for me to consider. I went with an accumulator/grapple.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I have two bale baskets. They work really nice for me since I'm storing a lot of my hay in an older barn. I typically do 1000 bales a day with a crew of 7-9. I have one person baling and a helper on the bale basket. I shuttle from field to barn. I'll have 4-5 at the barn stacking, two on the ground feeding the elevator and the rest in the barn.

Because of my hilly ground, I need a helper on the basket to kick them back when going downhill. Sometimes the bales want jam.

One key suggestion is to leave the shoot full when transporting. This helps make for a better bale consistency. If you take the bales out of the shoot each trip, the first 3-4 bales will be light because of lack of back pressure.

They are a little hard to unhook from the baler, so it helps to have a 3rd person out there switching baskets. And you can't make a very tight turn when pulling them.

This year, I have pre-sold two flat bed semi loads of sm. Squares. The trailer will be parked in a flat area and I plan on dumping at the trailer with an elevator running up.

Ralph


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Thanks for the info. It would be nice to not have the boys eating baler dust and baking in the sun. If I can locate a couple not too far away and most importantly find someone to haul them to East Tennessee I am going to spring for a couple. Regards, Mike


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

This is a bit old of thread but I found a deal on 5 more used baskets. Seals the deal, leaves us with 6 baskets, 8 flat racks and a long flatbed trailer. We will be able to have 3000 bales on wheels in ideal conditions, I'll be able to leave 1/4 of first cutting on wheels for delivery!


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## reede (May 17, 2010)

I got my first basket because of the shape of my hay barn, you couldn't get in with a loader/grapple, so you'd have to stack by hand anyway. I've got 2 now, and it has worked well for me. One person baling, another shuttling full baskets to the barn for dumping. Back when we picked hay up in the field, I never minded stacking on the trailer in the field, but didn't like the work in the barn. But, it is a whole lot easier to tolerate stacking in the barn if you didn't have to pick it up in the field to begin with. Also, my lespedeza field is the furthest from the barn, it takes me the same amount of time to fill the basket with bales(NH 315 baler) as it does to go to the barn, dump, and return to baling. With one basket I couldn't keep my help busy.

And the comment about leaving the chutes full of bales: only clean out when you are done for the day, or if there's clear weather and I'm baling 2 days in a row, I'll leave them in overnight. Makes startup much quicker.

Reed


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I saw somewhere someone talking about a small boat winch mounted on the baler to slack the hitch so taking the pin out is easier. The ladies can't muscle the pin out. A pin grabber hitch on the baler would work too.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Well went up and got my 5 baskets taken apart to ship. With rusted hardware it took about 1.25 hours each to tear down using air tools.

While there guy mentioned I might want to buy his walco/anderson quickhitch that works with the baskets. So 200$ later I have a quick hitch for one of my balers. Going back in 2 weeks to load them up for the trip home. 500 mile drive each way.


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