The issue of winter storage of hay is relevant for farmers and individuals involved in livestock and poultry farming. There are several easy ways to pack hay that are not expensive. One of them is the press.
Hay Press
The old-fashioned dried mowed grass is collected in sheaves. They not only take up a lot of space, but also often go bad. Hay and a plastic cover do not save. If the sheaf does not get wet from above, it begins to scream from the inside.
It is much more convenient and practical, according to modern farmers, to store hay in compressed form. The mechanism for forming a briquette can be made independently, without resorting to high costs. Most often, a significant part of the necessary materials is in storage or sheds.
There are three options that appeal to many users. Two of them are a metal or wooden case with a folding piston. The third is a rammer working from traction of a walk-behind tractor.
The easiest to manufacture (no need for welding) and use, a wooden hay press. His work takes place in four stages. Hay laid in the box, throwing the press three times, pressed. Then, without removing, bandage with twine.
Design features
The mechanism is a large box made of wood, which sits rigidly on a frame made of thick timber or metal profiles. The box does not have a roof, but there is a hinged door, such as a gate.
DIY presses for hay are easy to do. You will need planed, sanded and carefully polished boards. It is desirable to connect them with metal corners with fixing bolts. Then you need to beat the box around the perimeter (upper and lower) with slats of metal (preferably stainless steel). This will give the construction strength.
Gate device
When processing slats box, you need to remember about the opening for the wicket door. Therefore, experts recommend duplicating the reinforcement from the inside. The upper perimeter will be enough, since the lower bottom is rigidly fixed with an iron frame.
The easiest option for attaching a folding gate is the usual folding or door hinges. And it should be held tight during pressing by side metal rails. To do this, they need to be fixed so that they protrude beyond the lateral edge and end with large notches. The length of the protrusion depends on the steel or wooden valve, or rather, on the thickness of its side face. The valve can be made of timber, rod or rigid rails.
Main part
A hay press is made of metal or wood. A beam is fastened to the back wall of the box several times more than the height of the box itself. Two parallel beams are fixed on it. The distance is calculated so that between them it is possible to mount a beam that will perform half-turns around its axis. The sole of the press is attached at the second end of the beam. It should freely perform the same half-turns.
The shape and area of the sole are calculated by the size of the cross section of the structure itself. 5-8 mm are left for freedom of piston advancement.
On the back of the box, in a convenient place for work, a reel with a synthetic twine or thick fishing line is mounted. On the other hand, two narrow, elongated holes are made on the wicket door. They are needed for the bundle of the resulting briquette.
Hay baler
This device greatly facilitates the work of the farmer. The baler mechanizes the laborious and lengthy process of collecting dry grass from the fields. A smart machine not only collects, but also rolls hay in tight rolls.
Buying a baler is easy. But the factory version is intended for working with a conventional tractor or its mini version. For small farms that use only walk-behind tractors, it is not suitable.
You can assemble a similar device yourself. Special costs and effort will not be required.
Do-it-yourself hay presses of this kind are made quickly enough, and they cope perfectly with the full cycle of hay assembly and packaging. They are able to collect dried rollers on the field, compress and twist the dry grass into a roll.
There are several advantages. Such pick-ups are simple devices, and as a result, they have convenient settings. Do not crush grass and do not deform bales of homemade hay presses. The dimensions of the assembled units allow you to create small briquettes, which can be transported and stacked by one person.
An insignificant fly in the ointment can only be recognized as a lower density of the briquette coming out of the homemade press. Most often this happens due to the lack of a ligament apparatus, which is not installed, so as not to lose the power of the tractor.
Haymaking apparatus design
To build you will need:
- the skeleton for mounting all nodes and the main part of the attachment to the traction apparatus is the forehead;
- a running element with a rigid base for the press box. Equipped with two wheels for moving around the field;
- a pick-up with a conveyor belt that will collect hay rollers from the field;
- a cylindrical casing with a cardan drive press and a small gearbox. This part is made of rollers, a grate, pressing hay, a forming steel plate on a rigid spring (at the factory, instead of it is hydraulics).
Here it is worth noting that the more powerful the walk-behind tractor, the more likely it is to achieve the desired speed of rotation of the rollers, the higher the productivity of the assembled unit.
Assembly
A homemade hay press, powered by a tractor unit, is mounted in several stages:
- The undercarriage is being assembled - a base on two pneumatic wheels.
- The front end and the pick-up with a conveyor belt are mounted on it.
- The hay press and box are mounted as a single independent element. In the bottom of the box are mounted rollers and a grid for pressing hay. On the spring, in the upper part of the box, a plate is fixed. She crushes the already pressed grass before twisting into a roll.
- Next is going to drive. To do this, you need to connect the driveshaft and a two-speed gearbox, from which a chain drive goes to the rollers with the pick-up conveyor belt.
- On the pick-up device, gears of a diameter slightly larger than on the rollers are mounted (to increase the selection speed and pressing power).
If the quality of the bales you receive is not satisfactory, you can divide the work. First, collect dry grass with a motoblock rake, then press.