I’m not sure if it’s a coined phrase or not but I’ve never heard it anywhere else so I’m going to tentatively claim it as mine. So what exactly is a haybarrow? Before I can answer that question let me take a step back and tell you what my problem was that led to making a haybarrow. After all, necessity is the mother of all invention, right? Due to the layout of our property our feed storage area and “barn” area are located at the far end of the house from the driveway and carport. There is no easy way to get back there with anything larger than a wheelbarrow which means that all the feed has to be hauled by hand approximately 100′ down the side of the house to the feed and hay storage area. Which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal until you realize that we are talking about 1000 lbs of feed and hay every month. The wheelbarrow makes fairly quick work of the feed sacks but the hay bales are cumbersome and make the wheelbarrow very top heavy which means that much more work. So I hit on a solution. The haybarrow.
I knew that the wheelbarrow worked well except that the tub made the hay bales sit too high causing a high center of gravity so I kept an eye out for a wheel barrow with a good frame and a trashed tub, and then I spotted one at the dump. The wheelbarrow looked brand new except that when you looked inside the tub you could see where someone allowed it to sit out with water in the tub and it rusted completely out. The frame was in excellent condition so I ripped the tub off, chunked it in the metal recycle dumpster, and threw the frame in the back of my truck. When I got home I took it apart and made a crossmember for it and added a second board to get the platform up above the height of the wheel.
I then attached a wood pallet to the frame with bolts (most of which came from the frame to begin with) to give me a nice, smooth, flat platform to sit hay bales on. It will hold two bales side by side with a third atop those in the middle. It would hold 4 but it gets to be a bit heavy to push in the sand that is our property so I’ll stick to three. To keep the bales from sliding off the end when it is tilted, I placed a single board across just to give it a lip.
To finish things off I lubricated the wheel bearings well, sanded the handles back to a nice smooth finish, and wiped them down with a little clean motor oil to help soak in and make them more weather resistant. That’s it! It works great and is very handy for moving lots of hay bales and feed manually. Have a great day and God bless!