More big hay bales

The other day when I got more hay for the cattle it hit me that I was short of hay.  The cattle had been eating it faster than I realized.  I had one big bale left along with about 50 small bales.  Not quite enough to last until I let that cattle out to pasture the end of May.

Tim had no more hay so I turned to Johnny.   He had a large number of large bales weighing about 1200 lbs for $80 each.  Even though I thought I would need four or five bales I bought six.  In the past I have underestimated the amount of hay I would need fairly consistently.  Besides two trailers loads would equal six bales.

I borrowed Dan's trailer and got the hay today.

When securing the bales with my ratchet and strap Johnny helped me.  He showed me what I had done wrong the last time when the ratchet jammed.  I hadn't taken up the slack correctly before ratcheting the strap tight.

The bales were flat on the bottom from sitting since last Summer.  To get the bales off the trailer I needed help from my neighbor, and with great effort, we rolled them off the trailer.  For the second load of bales I had Johnny turn them slightly so the flat part was not the bottom.  It was good I had this done as my neighbor was gone when I came home with the second load of bales.  I was able to roll the bales off the trailer myself.  The middle bale was difficult to roll as the bale was near its flat part and the trailer tilted up in the back from the weight of the bale in the front of the trailer.  I made sure to roll the third bale to the middle before rolling the second bale completely off the trailer.  I dropped all the bales from the trailer onto wooden pallets for easier movement later.

Ready to roll the first bale off the trailer by myself.

Notice the flat part on the left bale sitting on the pallet.

The first bale now rolled off the trailer onto the pallet.