How does a Balefeeder compare to a Shreader or a Bale Shear?
You might find this comparison with Splitter (Bale shear), Unroller (Balefeeder), and Chopper (Shreader) handy.
“ We bought a Hustler unroller this year and it is the best money we have spent in for a long time, have hardly used a graipe this year. When word got about we had one a lot of neighbours came to see it working and I know of 3 more in the area now, brilliant machine. It’s easy to control the rate of feed as its oil driven and she manages high density bale great” – John Speehs, Sunny Co Antrim
*The Unroller used for this test, was not self-loading like the Hustler, therefore it required a separate tractor to load the bale increasing the time consumed for Loading & manoeuvring compared to that of a Hustler Balefeeder.”
Table 14. Work rates of silage feeding systems (s/bale).
| Splitter | Unroller | Chopper | F-test | |
| Loading & manoeuvring (s) | 57 | 114* | 119 | 8.3 |
| Removing plastic & twine (s) | 168 | 150 | 149 | 11.0 |
| Distribution (incl. chopping) (s) | 154 | 86 | 389 | 16.9 |
| Manual distribution (s) | 161 | 16 | — | 20.3 |
| TOTAL (s) | 540 | 366 | 657 | 24.4 |
Table 15. Evenness of distribution of silage.
| Splitter | Unroller | Unroller (chopped) | Chopper | F-test | |
| Sample weight range (kg) | 22-91 | 30-63 | 37-67 | 31-62 | — |
| CV (4 samples) (%) | 40.9 | 22.0 | 27.8 | 25.2 | 4.9 |
Table 16. Power requirement, fuel consumption and tractor requirements.
| Splitter | Unroller | Chopper | F-test | |
| Avg. power requirement (kW) | 9 | 5.2 | 28.1 | 2.1 |
| Peak power requirement (kW) | 16 | 14 | 48 | 2.12 |
| Fuel used per bale (l) | 0.45 | 0.07 | 1.11 | 0.04 |
| Lift requirement (t) | 1.29 | 1.61 | 2.38 | — |
| Turning circle radius (m) | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.4 | — |
Extract taken from http://www.teagasc.ie/research/reports/
