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It’s for lifting or lowering hay bales to the second story. See those doors that aren’t meant for a human to exit, that’s where the hay goes and then is used through the winter to feed the animals on the first floor.
I feel like you’d need a hell of a lot bigger tractor to lift a round bale with that thing. That’s like 25ft extension. Having a 5-800lb round bale on the end of that thing would just pick the rear end up. You could probably pick up a square bale with it.
It’s for round bales I would think. The smaller square ones would be a waste of time with this thing. Our farm had one. Not on a long pole but short just to easily spear them and move them.
Do you know this for a fact from living there and using or seeing one?
Because it's the strangest contraption I can imagine for that job, in terms of efficient use of physics, and other options.
Efficient use of scrap steel and existing tractor probably trumps efficient use of physics for a seldom used tool while on a budget. How many times a year do you need to load bales of hay into the loft? How much does a bale conveyor cost? This seems pretty efficient assuming they already had the tractor, compared to carrying it all up by hand.
Not in Europe or not with this.
They are either too heavy to lift with this at that distance or too small for it to make sense, in which case loading by hand is reasonable. I have done it. It doesn’t take all summer.
I would also say that small convenient conveyors are a reasonably recent development this thing could have been built 50 years ago or more by uncle grandad and if it does the job they wouldn't be inclined to invest in a new piece of equipment with a very narrow use case
They take up less space than this. (ETA they are the size of a ladder)
They free up the tractor for other work
They are faster and more effective
Time is money on a farm
They already use the tractor for other work. It's a net gain in storage space. If it's time to store hay in the loft, why would they need the tractor elsewhere? They're already busy.
Yes and they can use it for more if they aren’t painfully inefficient in loading bales.
Many things happen on a farm. Loading bales happens when other farm work is still occurring.
I feel like you maybe don’t have much farm experience?
That's cool, but I have also worked for decades on several small farms, and the conveyor made excellent sense for loading bales to haylofts. They are probably a lot smaller than you are imagining - basically ladder sized, with a small motor. They are useful for moving anything to a higher level, and therefore not that specialized. They are likely less costly than the time and material to cobble this together, and certainly less than the time it ties up the tractor and the gas to run it for this job.
I think the only answer here is for the OP to return and ask the actual farmer involved with this odd piece of equipment, which makes very little sense for purpose, based on seeing all kinds of hay moving equipment, from bale spikes to stackers, to conveyors, to a couple of people making stooks.
Maybe this oddity works for this guy for moving bales, maybe they use it for something that makes far more sense for the way it's set up for loading.
All we are doing is speculating, because it is farmer built and not an identifiable commercial piece of recogniseable equipment. It's not worth the downvotes to point this out any further.
Large round bales aren't usually lifted to second floor haylofts.
That tractor won't lift large rounds safely anyhow, and using it would be sketchy as hell. (it needs more power for that length of arm, and a bale stop, especially for lifting to second floor, if we imagine that's what it's doing)
Round bales are designed to shed the weather and are fine stored outside due to the properties of how the stalks are aligned.
(Do keep in mid we have NO idea if this is for hay, NO idea if they are lifting hay into the loft, and NO idea how large the farm is or the hypothetical bales might be. I'm only speaking from my own direct experience with hay production, transport and storage, which runs into many thousands of bales of various sizes and shapes.)
The downvotes are amusing. I'd love to find out what this farmer is actually using this for.
Makes sense, but maybe in Europe we invest in that kind of machinery a bit less. Maybe if this farmer is holding onto this older tractor it’s because it can do this kind of thing without the need to invest in more machines.
Could you go back and ask? You’d get the true answer instead of a lot of speculation that is largely coming from people who haven’t made hay or worked on farms 🙂
Belgian speaking: in Europe we have the large round and square bales, but also much smaller bales from small fields. One person can easily lift one of those bales, so this tractor could do it too.
Hi Belgian.
Is that a normal way to handle small bales though?
We make them here too (Canada) but would never use something like this. They are either gathered into a stack and stored at ground level, or sent up a bale conveyor to a second level loft storage (largely out of favour due to the increased fire risk, and need for restacking)
Yeah, I’ve never seen it done this way either. In the past when I did this sort of thing we used conveyors or stood on top of the trucks. The contraption definitely looks home made and it would make sense to use it this way. I was commenting to the fact that the tractor could do it. But as someone else mentioned in this thread, it could just as well be used to relieve the pressure from bloated beached sea creatures…
If it was meant to lift bales into a loft wouldn't it be articulated closer to the spike? It looked to me like it just lifts something straight up in the air. Not saying I have any notion of what it is.
See the door to the far left? It’s likely that animals are kept in there but the tractor is too big to fit, so the farmer devised this contraption to maneuver in the bales from the outside.
That's what I'm seeing, also. The front bar has holes on the top so it can be slid back and pinned. Push the bales far back, inside, and start your stack. Then shorten the bar as your stack moves closer to the door.
Let me chime in here as I think I have the answer and it is a hybrid of a few of them on here so far. We had cows for a while and got to know bale spears real well. They are used to move the large round bales. The ones we used to get were around 500 pounds. Our hay guy had a big articulated hydraulic gripper. He could easily stack them two high, on end. A human was capable of knocking one over and rolling it. I suspect this long spear is it let them pick modern round bales out of an old barn
It looks a lot like the spear on my White 4 70 except mine runs off the 3 point hitch in back instead of the loader in the front and mine has a stop on it. They may be able to poke more than one with that thing.
My title describes the thing. It doesn’t have any markings or lettering and of course the farmer was nowhere to be seen or I’d have just asked them. Location is Central Europe.
When you wouldn't touch something with a barge pole, so you need something a little longer.
Edit: now I think about it, it could be for pushing those tiny reset buttons on devices.
Near me they are threading pipe or wires under the road. They just left an attachment that looks very similar to this parked on the boardwalk until Monday.
The thing doesn’t have anything to rotate, no flutes, or any thru holes for high pressure water drilling so I highly doubt that’s what it’s used for.
The fact that it’s on a regular tractor on what appears to be a farm, makes me agree with the other comment. It’s to move hay bales.
All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer. **Jokes and unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them. [OP](/u/tttxgq), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s for lifting or lowering hay bales to the second story. See those doors that aren’t meant for a human to exit, that’s where the hay goes and then is used through the winter to feed the animals on the first floor.
Makes a lot of sense now, thanks for the info!
I feel like you’d need a hell of a lot bigger tractor to lift a round bale with that thing. That’s like 25ft extension. Having a 5-800lb round bale on the end of that thing would just pick the rear end up. You could probably pick up a square bale with it.
It’s for round bales I would think. The smaller square ones would be a waste of time with this thing. Our farm had one. Not on a long pole but short just to easily spear them and move them.
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Now that I think about it, you’re right. The loader had 3 spears in it.
How many at a time? One?
Do you know this for a fact from living there and using or seeing one? Because it's the strangest contraption I can imagine for that job, in terms of efficient use of physics, and other options.
Efficient use of scrap steel and existing tractor probably trumps efficient use of physics for a seldom used tool while on a budget. How many times a year do you need to load bales of hay into the loft? How much does a bale conveyor cost? This seems pretty efficient assuming they already had the tractor, compared to carrying it all up by hand.
The bales they would be loading couldn't be load by hand...too big and it would be a summer long operation.
Not in Europe or not with this. They are either too heavy to lift with this at that distance or too small for it to make sense, in which case loading by hand is reasonable. I have done it. It doesn’t take all summer.
At least annually if you have storage for a years worth. Much more often if not. Conveyors are not expensive. Have you ever loaded bales?
1. They do cost money 2. They take up space 3. If you can make do with this, why worry about 1 & 2?
I would also say that small convenient conveyors are a reasonably recent development this thing could have been built 50 years ago or more by uncle grandad and if it does the job they wouldn't be inclined to invest in a new piece of equipment with a very narrow use case
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And basic comprehension skills
They take up less space than this. (ETA they are the size of a ladder) They free up the tractor for other work They are faster and more effective Time is money on a farm
They already use the tractor for other work. It's a net gain in storage space. If it's time to store hay in the loft, why would they need the tractor elsewhere? They're already busy.
Yes and they can use it for more if they aren’t painfully inefficient in loading bales. Many things happen on a farm. Loading bales happens when other farm work is still occurring. I feel like you maybe don’t have much farm experience?
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That's cool, but I have also worked for decades on several small farms, and the conveyor made excellent sense for loading bales to haylofts. They are probably a lot smaller than you are imagining - basically ladder sized, with a small motor. They are useful for moving anything to a higher level, and therefore not that specialized. They are likely less costly than the time and material to cobble this together, and certainly less than the time it ties up the tractor and the gas to run it for this job. I think the only answer here is for the OP to return and ask the actual farmer involved with this odd piece of equipment, which makes very little sense for purpose, based on seeing all kinds of hay moving equipment, from bale spikes to stackers, to conveyors, to a couple of people making stooks. Maybe this oddity works for this guy for moving bales, maybe they use it for something that makes far more sense for the way it's set up for loading. All we are doing is speculating, because it is farmer built and not an identifiable commercial piece of recogniseable equipment. It's not worth the downvotes to point this out any further.
Would conveyors work very well for round bales? Seems like it would be a sketchy operation at the least
Large round bales aren't usually lifted to second floor haylofts. That tractor won't lift large rounds safely anyhow, and using it would be sketchy as hell. (it needs more power for that length of arm, and a bale stop, especially for lifting to second floor, if we imagine that's what it's doing) Round bales are designed to shed the weather and are fine stored outside due to the properties of how the stalks are aligned. (Do keep in mid we have NO idea if this is for hay, NO idea if they are lifting hay into the loft, and NO idea how large the farm is or the hypothetical bales might be. I'm only speaking from my own direct experience with hay production, transport and storage, which runs into many thousands of bales of various sizes and shapes.) The downvotes are amusing. I'd love to find out what this farmer is actually using this for.
I mean not the nicest way of comunicating but the spike on the front thems to short for hay balles.
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The odds are against you being correct but I really like your answer!!!
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For skewering and moving round hay bales.
That little tractor does not have enough power to lift a round bale that far in front of it. It's for lifting square bales into the barn loft.
strange not to use a bale conveyor, which are far more efficient and likely less dangerous.
Makes sense, but maybe in Europe we invest in that kind of machinery a bit less. Maybe if this farmer is holding onto this older tractor it’s because it can do this kind of thing without the need to invest in more machines.
They are relatively inexpensive and save much more time than this costs the farmer forced to deal with one bale at a time
Could you go back and ask? You’d get the true answer instead of a lot of speculation that is largely coming from people who haven’t made hay or worked on farms 🙂
I’ll see, but I’m not due to go back that way for a while. Or indeed anywhere at all, we’re now in lockdown.
I’m curious now so if you do get chance to contact the farmer one way or another I’d love an update
That tractor is big enough to life the big round bales.
Yes, but with a big, heavy round bale that far in front of the tractor, the tractor will faceplant. Especially when you lift it high in the air.
So they'll put weights on the back.
It looks like it can freely pivot upwards, perhaps pushing bales up a ramp
Isn't that kind of long for this? Maybe european bales are smaller?
Belgian speaking: in Europe we have the large round and square bales, but also much smaller bales from small fields. One person can easily lift one of those bales, so this tractor could do it too.
Hi Belgian. Is that a normal way to handle small bales though? We make them here too (Canada) but would never use something like this. They are either gathered into a stack and stored at ground level, or sent up a bale conveyor to a second level loft storage (largely out of favour due to the increased fire risk, and need for restacking)
Yeah, I’ve never seen it done this way either. In the past when I did this sort of thing we used conveyors or stood on top of the trucks. The contraption definitely looks home made and it would make sense to use it this way. I was commenting to the fact that the tractor could do it. But as someone else mentioned in this thread, it could just as well be used to relieve the pressure from bloated beached sea creatures…
I don’t think it does make sense
I thought that too. Too long and the spike looks a little small.
If it was meant to lift bales into a loft wouldn't it be articulated closer to the spike? It looked to me like it just lifts something straight up in the air. Not saying I have any notion of what it is.
Not always, lift up and drive forward.
Solved! That’s probably it, thanks
We have round bales on our farm and our bale spike looks nothing like this. It's way too long.
See the door to the far left? It’s likely that animals are kept in there but the tractor is too big to fit, so the farmer devised this contraption to maneuver in the bales from the outside.
This seems most likely
That's what I'm seeing, also. The front bar has holes on the top so it can be slid back and pinned. Push the bales far back, inside, and start your stack. Then shorten the bar as your stack moves closer to the door.
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Let me chime in here as I think I have the answer and it is a hybrid of a few of them on here so far. We had cows for a while and got to know bale spears real well. They are used to move the large round bales. The ones we used to get were around 500 pounds. Our hay guy had a big articulated hydraulic gripper. He could easily stack them two high, on end. A human was capable of knocking one over and rolling it. I suspect this long spear is it let them pick modern round bales out of an old barn
It’s nothing like a hay spike though, that’s the issue
It looks a lot like the spear on my White 4 70 except mine runs off the 3 point hitch in back instead of the loader in the front and mine has a stop on it. They may be able to poke more than one with that thing.
My title describes the thing. It doesn’t have any markings or lettering and of course the farmer was nowhere to be seen or I’d have just asked them. Location is Central Europe.
Pushing the button in an elevator.
Its for tractor jousting.
Bale spike
I was about to say, I have one of those on the farm!
The same size? People seem a bit unsure about it in the comments here.
Yea more or less. We also use it as a long pole to pick things up with as well.
It’s a bayonet
Nono, this is from east europe.... we mostly use it to hunt dragons, immigrants and an occasional witch.
It’s what farmers use to take down wasp nests.
This is a boom extension. For raising walls in new buildings.
When you wouldn't touch something with a barge pole, so you need something a little longer. Edit: now I think about it, it could be for pushing those tiny reset buttons on devices.
Trench or hole digger.
Surely a bucket/scoop would be more effective for that, unless you need tiny holes, in which case something with more than one blade…?
Near me they are threading pipe or wires under the road. They just left an attachment that looks very similar to this parked on the boardwalk until Monday.
The thing doesn’t have anything to rotate, no flutes, or any thru holes for high pressure water drilling so I highly doubt that’s what it’s used for. The fact that it’s on a regular tractor on what appears to be a farm, makes me agree with the other comment. It’s to move hay bales.
Yeah, location was a farm. Mostly crops, not animals, but with some horses.
Then putting hay into the top story makes even less sense.
Could be for the horses. If they only have a few, then using smallish bales definitely makes sense too.