MORTLACH, Sask. – As a manufacturer of drill markers and other equipment, Greg Haukaas is always on the lookout for new products to add to his lineup.
“We’re about five miles north of the government hay fields and we saw the people down there, when they were rolling up their bales to be hauled at a later date, they were going around with a tractor and front end loader with a spike on it,” Haukaas said from his Haukaas Manufacturing Ltd. shop near Mortlach.
“They’d drive a bale half a mile, set it by the road and go back to get another one. We felt there had to be a better way.”
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Greg’s father Duane had some ideas and three years ago the two began working on a bale accumulator called the Quick Pick, which gathers bales into clusters for easier pickup.
“If you’ve only got two or three miles to go, it’s possible to haul them all the way home, but that’s not the main purpose of it,” Haukaas said.
The Quick Pick has two chambers that ride in transport on top of a trailer-type frame. When in the field, these chambers fold down alongside the trailer and scoop up bales.
Haukaas said it works best to slalom through the hay field, picking a bale in the left chamber, the next in the right chamber and so forth until the chambers are full. That way, it loads evenly.
“When running through the field loading the bales, we run the chambers 10 to 12 inches off the ground so the bales are not dragging on the ground. As we approach a bale, we drop the chambers down, run it over the bale we’re scooping up, then lift it up again.”
He said the chambers are designed to pick up as large as a 72-inch round bale.
“The chamber itself is oval, as the bales, over time, do sag somewhat. This gives us a little more side-to-side room to load the chambers. It’s easier to get the bales in.”
The machine they have now works best on 68 inch bales but they also plan to develop smaller chambers because more producers want to pick up 48-inch silage bales.
The Quick Pick has four hydraulic lift cylinders and four suspension springs mounted on the top of the trailer frame that help counterbalance the chambers.
“We wanted them to float in the down position, rather than running hard on the ground,” Haukaas said.
“When the hydraulic cylinders lift, all they’re really lifting are the bales, because the springs are lifting the chambers. It gives a quicker response time when we lift the chambers up and down.”
He said suspension is a desirable attribute because hay fields can be rough but producers still want to move at a good speed.
Rear gates close up the back of the chambers so that bales can’t fall out the back during loading. Hydraulic cylinders can open the gates if necessary.
Unloading can work in two ways: bales can be dropped, the rear gate opened and the Quick Pick driven ahead, leaving two rows of five bales; or the Quick Pick can pull up to the back of two rows of bales, the chambers lowered and the machine backed up, to leave longer rows.
“If you want to use hydraulically activated rear gates, three remote hydraulics are required on your tractor. With fixed rear gates, all that’s required is two hydraulic remotes.”
The Haukaas’ first machine was a six-bale accumulator but Greg found that he spent a lot of time travelling to and from where he was dropping off the bales. It took less than two minutes to load and the rest of the time driving back and forth.
“We felt if we went to an eight bale, we could increase our load and decrease travelling time. We built an eight bale and after using it for a time, we felt we could get the best value per bale out of an accumulator by going to a 10 bale unit. Four tires, four springs and four cylinders will carry six bales or ten bales.”
He said efficiency was paramount.
“There’s other machines out there that pick up bales and move them around. We felt we could be more efficient with our design, with a more trouble-free machine.”
Haukaas said other bale haulers on the market use chains, orbital motors, bearings and sprockets, with tilt beds and winches to move bales off their decks. He said that’s worked well for years, but he wanted to come up with something more simple, with less parts to wear out.
“There’s really only one adjustment on the whole trailer. That’s the height of the hitch off the ground. We like to run just a bit lower on the front end.”
Haukaas also wanted a machine that wouldn’t scar bales.
“It’s gentle on the bale. The bottom side of the bale always stays on the bottom. Every time we set the bale down, it goes on the same side it was left by the baler,” he said.
“The advantage is, you only have one spoiled spot on the bale. And the flat spot of the bale is always down, which helps if you’re loading the bales onto a semi trailer. The flat spot sits better on the trailer; it doesn’t want to roll around on you. So it makes for a safer load.”
When using the accumulator on his farm, Haukaas collects bales on spots in the hay field where the growth is not as good, such as a foxtail patch.
“After harvest, I pick them up and move them closer to the road or on some durum stubble, so in winter when the semis come we can easily get to them from the road and load them,” he said.
“We can also drop our bales in the field, then go back and scoop them up later. We drop 10 at a time, we scoop 10 at a time. To drop is 20 seconds, to pick them up is less time than that.”
Haukaas said he generally picks bales at about six km-h and travels to drop spots at about 10 km-h. A neighbour using the eight bale picker in 2004 said he picked more than 200 in an hour, and set them in clusters in the field for loading afterward.
“It’s very fast if you’re just making clusters.”
Haukaas Manufacturing has built six Quick Pick bale accumulators during the development stage and recently sold its first commercial unit.
“Last year, for R and D, we rented out two machines. That gave us an opportunity to work with different operators, tractors, kinds and sizes of bales, field conditions. We gathered a lot of information and have since gone to bigger hydraulic cylinders, larger chambers and larger tires for better flotation,” he said.
Haukaas hopes to sell two or three machines this year, then do a full-scale commercial run for 2006. He said the 10 bale Quick Pick accumulator will cost approximately $20,000.
For more information, phone Greg Haukaas at 306-355-2718.
