Beaver slide?

I saw on the last American cowboy a tv show last nite a thing called a beaver slide for putting up loose hay. Anybody ever see one, or worked around one. It was like a huge ramp all made out of debarked trees, pretty high up, they would push the loose hay, after it was raked and dry, onto a big basket, which was hooked to a cable, hooked to a drum that would spin and pull the basket up a ramp, and dump the hay into a, well almost like a big basket. It was pretty neat, but they dident talk alot about it.

Yep,

I didn't see your program, but it was probably an over-shot dumping into a cage.

All hay out in this country used to be put up that way (without the cage, of course).

Allan

over shot was a little different,as you could at least theoretically put hay close to where you needed it in stack .beaverslides(and overshots)were used many many years.And they are still a viable way to put up loose hay.Believe it or not,they were the prototype hay loader of the day.A pickup hay loader was in use at the same time that was simply a beaverslide on a smaller scale with a pickup reel on front.wagon was hooked to rear and hay was picked up either directly off the ground after mowing,or if you were picking up something like alfalfa for instance that would lose its leaves,out of a wind row and loaded on wagon.( very few of these have survived by the way, to find one in working condition is very rare)forking hay ONTO a wagon (if youve never done it) is one of the hardest dirtiest jobs on a farm,These were HUGE labor savers.Balers, when handling hay, are actually somewhat of a compromise. You will arguably lose less hay out of a stack,and can put it up reltivly cheaply(both stored outside of course)but it takes a lot more labor to feed out of a stack in both putting up hay and feeding.Overshots are what most folks are more familiar with in most sections because they could be broken down and moved easier.But in the big range country where you bunched your cattle in winter beaverslides were common.to this day if you move your livestock onto what you might call the home range in winter,loose hay makes perfect sense.

The hay only went into a "basket" if you had backstops on three sides. It was not uncommon to only have one backstop with the sides open and we did it for several years with no backstops. They were extremely popular in the big hole in southwest Montana, and have not completely gone away yet. Some were made out of steel. I have helped make one or two and could probably do it if I had to. When we switched to round bales the crew went from five people to one to do the haying in the same time. I can give more information if it is wanted.

I just looked at you-tube under beaverslide stacker and there are some videos of them in use. Ours were somewhat steeper than the ones shown. The two longest sticks, one on each side, were usually anywhere from 50 feet to 65 feet long. The width was usually 16 feet to 24 feet. They don't really show it, but the hay could be placed about anywhere on the stack by where it was put side to side on the fork to a limited extent and front to back fairly accurately by how fast and far you raised the fork. We last put up loose hay in 1975 and started round baling in 1976. Round bales are what replaced beaverslides.

There are still some of them being used in the Little Blackfoot country between Garrison and Helena, MT and a neighbor told me some old friends around Avon, MT just built a new one a few years back.

Yes I forgot to say, the show was about huge cattle ranches in Montanna. I cant remember the 3 ranches names, I think the one ranch was 100,000 acres or something?? the guy owned a helicopter. That acres may be wrong. I dident hear it very well.

Galt was the biggest , they had the helicopter, Stucky had the beaverslide, hughes ranch 90% of the work was done by the son, and his wife kids, my wife says i was born in the wrong era

Is that the Galt by White Sulphur Springs?

I was amazed when I worked in the Big Hole Valley in Montana one winter - We had always put up allfalfa with a baler - a few at that time with a Hesston stacker - The Big Hole had tractors with an extra axle and a grapple on the back. The extra axle and the rear tires had a set of tracks on them.
The tracotrs wouild pick hay from the big stack and put it in a trailer. Then go thru the pasture and pick off the trailer and drop on the snow for the cattle.
Being from Western Kansas that was a NEW deal - and also the 50 deg below zero- that winter was educational!!!!!!

Ken 46

Still one in use west of Walden,Co. They dump into a steel cage to form the stack, Feeding is done with a hyrafork mounted on a sled pulled by four horses. I noticed that they had put some hay up in round bales last year. I only know of two that were used in our county. Overshots were the stacker of choice until the farmhand F10' replaced them. I put up hay in 1960 with a overshot built by Deere.

There are more of them north of Avon toward Helmville and also up three mile.

Hello JayinNY,
The origin/inventor is unclear, but the date is not!
It has been in use since 1910
Guido.

Yes it was, Bill Galt, and his ranch west of White Sulphur Springs.

Here's a picture from our ranch in about 1980 of the one we used. Used it up until about '84 or so, then we went to big round bales.

The head of the stacker is pulled up by a hydraulic winch...before that either horses or a tractor was used to pull the stacker head up.

That's a 656IH with the "stacker tower" on it- a man would sit up there and use a hydra-fork to move the hay around to build a strong level stack, with a domed top to shed water. Stacks weighed around 6 tons.

A 340 IH is reveresed for a hay sweep to push the hay onto the stacker head. We also had some sweeps that were built on pickup chassis- those would really fly but tended to overheat pretty easily and could get stuck on the wet meadows.

The stacker in the picture fell victim to my dad smashing it with a loader a few years back, but I still have a complete one stored on a place we bought from an uncle.

There's still some in use in the Sandhills of Nebraska also. Ours were always made out of regular lumber though. Several around made totally out of steel too. Ours had a round cage with dolley wheels that would break open and swing apart when you finished a stack so you could move on to the next one.

With one 46ft dump rake doing the straight raking and scatter raking both, and two sweeps- one bunching and one pushing the loads to the stacker, we could put up more hay in a day than a neighbor just accross the fence who was using a Hesston "Bread Loaf" stacker.

That being said, we put up twice the hay now with half the crew doing big round bales...two JD 16ft self-propelled swathers, one v-rake, and two Vermeer big round balers.

Here's a little closer view, that also shows a factory-built sweep, built on a Ford pickup chassis.