Front loading round bale collector/trailers

[An Interested Spectator]

The other day I treated myself to a Britains Krone Benac bale trailer. Getting the model set me thinking, what ever happened to this type of bale trailer ?

I remember a small farm close to where i lived as a teenager having a front loading bale trailer similar to the krone, it still carried four bales but was a lot smaller than the Krone, I remember it being towed by an Iseki of around 50hp and it not dwarfing the tractor (this farm always had small tractors, nothing over 70hp, and always had somthing a bit different last time i passed they had a kioti of around 70hp, but thats another story). I have done various google image searches for this type of trailer but found nothing.

Did this type of trailer not take off, or have they died out over time, and if so does anyone know the reason ?

cheers

Adie.

[Ciaran (Perfect-32)]

i always thought the same thing! googled thaem and fownd nothing!

[archbarch]

i think they were only ever popular in continental Europe? never seen one in the UK,  i dont understand why they never took off here but then  UK farmers have always been behind in bale handling, the flat 8 system was a huge leap in its time but i still remember some farmers not buying the sledge and manually stacking bales for the flat 8 grab??

[ploughmaster]

I think they never caught on over here simply because they were a painfully slow way of carting large numbers of bales - most only carried 4 or 6 at a time.  They were fine for the small 'one-man-band' central European farms where they only had to move relatively small numbers of bales, but on larger farms dealing with hundreds or thousands of bales, it is far quicker and more efficient to use a flat trailer which could take many more. 

Such things did exist over here; Howard and Hayflake Systems made round bale carriers here, but they just weren't quick enough.

In the mid 80's, I worked on a farm which had a Howard Ombo (very rare machine - they only built 20 of them!) which only carried 4 round bales and had a side arm with a squeeze on it to pick the bales up.  Only carrying 4 bales meant you spent a lot of time travelling between field and yard for a small number of bales.  By contrast, I once used a 'Big K' four wheeler which would take 25 medium sized round bales (two courses and a rider) which was much quicker.

I'm not sure about the comment that the UK was always behind, many UK farmers were using accumulators like the Cooke, Farmhand or Bamfords Juggler flat eight systems or the McConnel Bale Packer back in the 70's, when much of the continent were still dropping individual small bales out in the field.

[Tractorman810]

i agree with ploughmaster on the flat 8's etc , we had the eraly cooks system when it first came out, stacked the 8's in a 4x2 block, then a grab on the 35 lifted that onto a flat bed, as soon as the flat 8 proper came out we upgraded to it as well, most farmers up suffolk round us did to, be it browns cooks or a locla firm that built flat 10 sledges and grabs, saw one recently but name escapes me

round bales up that way were never very popular as most people had pigs and small bales were a lot easier to handle in the pens etc, lot still do use them to even now in the age of big and midi bales prob explains the lack of those round bale trailers up there at least

[Jdeere6910]

A local engineering firm up the road still builds a variant of this type of collector. They were featured in the Farmers Weekley a few months back. They're not very popular round us because they dont carry much, relatively expensive compared to a normal trailer and carnt stack them in a shed.

Heres the link for the firm that builds them near us:

http://www.rhoco.co.uk/

Hope this helps a bit.

[archbarch]

my point is i could never see the reason in buying a flat 8 grab without the sledge, alot of farmers were either too tight or couldnt see the advantage of complete flat 8 handling system.

Continental Europe has always had a following for accumulators or bale throwers, smaller units may have been a factor. I think the UK had a ready supply of cheap labour on farms during the 70s and  tractors at hand was also a factor that bale carriers/accumulators never took off.

[ploughmaster]

I agree, it would defeat the point, but I have never seen such a situation. 

Perhaps you lived in a less advanced area, but every farm I came across both then and now, which had the flat 8 grab, also had some variation of flat 8 accumulator.  Most also had a specialist trailer to pick up complete bale stacks of anything between 40 and 60 bales. 

Accumulators were certainly used on the majority of farms around Lincolnshire back then - everything from a trailed cage that dumped the bales ready for picking up with an 8' wide scoop to be tipped onto a trailer for hand stacking,  through flat 8 or flat 10 (some with a second sledge to allow the 8's/10's to be dropped in a line across the field for easy loading,  to the McConnel bale stacker which built 4 bales high stacks of 20 bales. 

Regarding 'cheap' labour, what I remember from the 70's is the farmers wingeing about how the wages were too high and how they couldn't afford to employ the staff any more and how the latest (derisory) AWB wage rise would put them out of business (much the same as they do nowadays in fact  )

[Eurodeere]

Flat eights, grabs, accumulators, you don't need to waste money on all that technology, mesh floored trailers (no need for expensive luxuries like brakes) and a pitch fork is all you need to go moving bales with.

[archbarch]

i guess i lived/grew up in a diverse area in the 70s, the farm my dad worked on had a complete Browns flat 8 system but there were farms still using the Perry loader, round bales took off in the area and one farm had a Howard bale packer.

When my grandad retired in 1978 he was still putting milk in churns while the neighbouring farm had a Steiger Panther, so i am fortunate i suppose to have witnessed so much, thats maybe why i think farming nowadays is boring its all pretty much the same.

[An Interested Spectator]

Thanks for the replies guys, interesting as ever.

I wonder how many farmers are aware of the number of tractor movements per bale they are making.

Speaking as a none farmer (and I am quite prepared to be put in my place by some one who is), I always thought this was an argument for rapping at the stack, particularly when using a separate wrapper. Baling, wrapping, stacking on trailer, trailer haulage and stacking again is a lot of tractor movements per bale. Obviously using a combined baler/wrapper reduces this a lot.