Best hay wagon design for a 10 bale accumulator?

Have 2 of the Pequea's. If I remember right one is 20' and other is 21' . No reason just the useable lenth of the stringers when I got them. Both are 8 ft wide. The round bale wagon on was one of our best investments. I believe it is 10'x24'. The bottom layer have to move a few bales by hand but on the 2nd layer use the round bale stops and build stack from there. Fully loaded on 3 wagons is 580 bales. If I the barn was higher I would go 7 high which would give me 640. No straps. no back racks, no issues.

Yes, it would be pretty heavy. It dawned on me that I could put half of a batch on the wagon, if I really wanted to fill out the floor. So it would be 35 per layer, 3 batches of 10 plus a batch of 5 bales. 35 bales x 6 layers is 210 bales at 60 lbs per bale is 12,600 lbs. Should be within the weight limit of the running gear. So that makes the wagon 21 feet ideally. Funny thing is that a 20 ft 2x10 is about $42. A 24 foot 2x10 is $123. Quite a difference in price especially when I wanted to use 6 total 2x10s just for an extra foot. Looks like I need to just put 3 batches of 10 on the hay wagon and then fill in with a single bale in the front and keep the wagon at 20 foot or I could make a 1 foot box and add it to get to 21 feet. I am trying to not move any by hand this way.

I can get 180-200 on a 20-21 foot wagon. If I had 3 hay wagons built as 20x8s then I could transport about 600 bales and not have to worry about utility trailers. I need to find another 8 ton running gear to fill out my needs as I have 1 wagon built and a 2nd being built but I need 3 it would seem. Tandom running gear would be nice but it is hard to find and a bit pricey if in good shape.

I was also going to laminate three 2x10 treated boards together as the primary structural beams, then add 8 foot 4x4s going across at 2 feet interval, then 20 foot 2x6s running on the top of the 4x4s. I have a hay wagon built like this, only it used two oak 4x10s as the primary beams instead of treated lumber. It has carried 200 bales with no problems. I now the oak is stronger but I don't have access to that guy anymore.

I think adding a rack in the front may just get in the way of the grapple, so I am thinking that isn't a good idea at this point. Still collecting comments though.

Truck frame rails are where it’s at for beams.

I built 4 20 ft wagons over the last few yrs.. doubled up 2x10s for stringers (added “joists” in between at front, rear, 2 others at equal spacing to square up/limit twist).. 8 ft 2x6s for a bed and 2 10ft 2x4s on each side of the bed to keep ends from warping.. we are flat landers so I put my 2x4 underneath, you could always put them on top flat to keep hay from sliding if necessary..easy to put together and very limited cutting.. I’m happy with them and hold 120-150 bale no problem.. my bales are on edge and the skid steer won’t reach more than 5 high.. although I’m more comfortable with 4 for ease of unloading

Some better pictures.

Thanks for the better pictures. I see you do not use any back racks at all on your wagons. I thought it would be good to install a back rack if I were to use the wagon behind baler for hand stacking or use it to tighten up the grapple stack by pushing against back rack after dropping the load. However, does it get in the way when you are stacking with a grapple? I don't need 3 wagons for hand stacking so no racks on two more wagons would be fine.

After looking at your tandem, I think it might be good to pursue a tandem as my 3rd wagon. I can use it for round bale movement and make it 24 feet as you point out. I see it is 10 feet wide as well since you have 2 bales sitting on the side. I like the use of the 2 small racks in the front and the back for round bales. It doesn't appear they get in the way for handling small squares however your first layer looks different than the rest of the layers so I assume you adjust that first layer to get around the small racks?. Having a tandem allows for 4 rows of 10 and potentially 240-260 bales according to what I counted on your picture. I have a tractor with my grapple, so I can go higher than skidsteers and do 6 high. On your stacks, did you use a skidsteer or a tractor?

I am not sure where to find truck frame rails. That recommendation as 8350HiTech points out looks like a good idea. Curious if I can see a picture of the undercarriage of your tandem? What size and type of beam was used for the primary rails? Finally, can you get by with steel beams and then place wood on top for the deck or do you have to use steel decking too? This could be a much more complicated and expensive build on a tandem, if so. I have located decent tandem running gear for about $1800 so that may be the first thing I need to start with.

At first, I thought this question was a little obvious but I am glad I asked now. Looks like a good setup could be two 8x20 foot single axle wagons and one 10x24 foot tandem and my gooseneck. That will get me the 800+ bales I need to get done in one day.

At the time I felt I over paid for the round bale wagon but has turned out it owes me nothing. Best wagon we have and want another one. Hard to find 10 ft wide and being built flat. I would even go longer if I came across one. Most have some sort of an angle to the to help hold round bales. We don't mess around when it comes to moving round bales.

Some rearranging of square bales is needed on first layer. We load with both skidsteer and tractor. 6 high is max due to barns and sheds. 240 bales. We stagger the top to tie everything together for travel. No grapple can replace the intregrity of a properly hand stacked load of hay.

That is impressive going 3 wide on 4x5 bales. I count 28 bales at one time on your load. Those 10 on top also hold your side bales on better. That wagon is way better than buying a round bale mover only trailer. That requires 13 ton running gear or greater.

I think to build an all metal wagon is expensive as it would be in the range of $6000+ with older running gear. I saw some fairly new ones that were 10 foot wide on Tractorhouse for $9900 - $14500. That's not in my price range this year.

Is your wagon home made or commercial made wagon?

I may just build another 8x20 and sink $1500 into it. I have 2 running gear only starting points now and would need to acquire a 3rd to give me 4 capable grapple stack wagons. 180 bales versus 250 doesn't justify the extra cost this year. I also found out the tandem running gear has been sold that was close to me. It would be nice to get some tandem running gear even if I put wood on it and reduce it's size to 8x20 for this year. Be a good basis to start from for next year. I could reuse the wood frame for another 8x20 wagon.

I would really like to move 28 round bales at one time so i am going to keep my eye out for something for next year at a minimum. I agree that the efficiency of that bigger wagon is worth the extra cost in the long run. I have also found that most of the quality farm equipment I have been buying over the past 5 years has been worth about what I have been paying for it, once sold. May not stay that way in the future but don't think you are going to lose a lot. If I paid $6000 and sold it for $4000 and saved 2 trips in fuel and time while I owned it, it would pay for itself in relatively quick time. We travel up to 16 miles in one case to round bale and it is justified because the bales are free and it produces about 30 bales on first cutting. Pain in the butt to move them though.

Thanks for the pictures and insight.

That would be impressive if they were 4x5. Depends on what you mean by a round bale trailer only. We have a flatbed truck that dumps that is much quicker If you mean an Anderson style it becomes debatable. Picture this. We need a loader on either end of this operation to remove bales from wagon. That is 3 tractors running. With a 10 or 14 Anderson. 1 tractor and never have to get off tractor.

I purchased it at an auction for somewhere around 6000-6500 if I remember right. It is custom/commercial made by Mennonite’s in NY. Appears to be based on Horst design.

mstuck21 said:

I built 4 20 ft wagons over the last few yrs.. doubled up 2x10s for stringers (added “joists” in between at front, rear, 2 others at equal spacing to square up/limit twist).. 8 ft 2x6s for a bed and 2 10ft 2x4s on each side of the bed to keep ends from warping.. we are flat landers so I put my 2x4 underneath, you could always put them on top flat to keep hay from sliding if necessary..easy to put together and very limited cutting.. I’m happy with them and hold 120-150 bale no problem.. my bales are on edge and the skid steer won’t reach more than 5 high.. although I’m more comfortable with 4 for ease of unloading
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Your approach is something I like because it is less money than using the 4x4s and then using the 20 foot long 2x6s as the top decking. I am basically flat land too so bottom 2x4 would work although about everyone I see around me uses a top board but lays it flat and another on the bottom flat. I think I like your idea for better rigidity and I could put stake pockets on the 2x4 for hanging ratchet straps.

Your idea of Joists in between does strengthen it and prevent twist. I have significant twist on one of my other hay wagons and those joists are missing. I might not need three 2x10s either since you have gotten by with only two.

Thanks for the design tips. I need 4 good grapple stack wagons and this would be the most economical approach. This will limit me to 30 bales per row but that's all the wagons can handle anyway. If I ratchet strap it, I should be able to go 6 high since I am flat and that would be 180 bales. The hay tractor and the grapple tractor could pull all four wagons home at once so only one trip there and back. I have my pickup and gooseneck for anything left over. So, this is probably the plan for this year. Thanks for sharing.

I get my truck frame either from the local heavy truck wrecker, scrap yard, or randomly finding them for sale. And if I’m doing a good job buying other used structural steel, I can pretty much build a wagon out of “junk”. If you had to buy all new steel tomorrow, I would agree that it’s not such a good deal.

You could definitely do a steel frame and then wood boards perpendicular to the frame, as I’ve seen some done that way for small bales. Each of the ones that I’ve built have been for thrower racks or round/3x3 bales, so they’ve all had steel cross members and wood floor full length, except the big bale wagon having no floor. It would take a floor easily though and I had that in mind when I built it.

Anyway, here’s some random pictures I found in my camera roll if you run across a honey hole of good steel. I wouldn’t want to do this from a mass production view but one or two per year can be done rather cheaply and I kind of find fun.