Bale Kickers and Throwers Recommendations

I am needing a mechanical way to handle small square bales and only have an old tobacco barn to use for hay storage that is not loader/accumulator friendly. I think that kicker wagons may be the best way to go since i will still have to handle by hand whenever I get to the barn.  I'm also only talking about +/- 5,000 bales per year so this isn't going to be a huge enterprise. My only issue is that here in Kentucky, there aren't a whole lot of bale throwers/kickers available.  However, there are a lot of good used balers around that have been used either alone or with accumulators.  I'm leaning towards a used New Holland 570/BC5060 or 575/BC5070 baler due to the fact I like the NH thrower system vs. the Deere pan kicker system.  I have good NH, JD, & Case-IH dealers around.  I'd also be open to a Hesston/MF inline baler, but those are even more uncommon here in north/central KY. Cat dealer handles MF around here and I haven't had any interaction with them to make a judgement.

 

The two options I'm looking at are:

1.  Buy a local baler, find a used NH 72 thrower somewhere, ship it in, and install it myself

2.  Go to central Ohio/Indiana (150+ miles away) and then pull it back myself over 6-8 hours (since these balers are all over 8.5 feet wide)

 

For anybody who has ever moved the things around between balers, would you recommend travelling to find a complete unit (baler and thrower) or getting a good, close baler and then mounting a thrower on it?  Other than the belts, are there a whole lot of things to worry about on these systems?  I've read some stuff on NH balers about getting an axle offset on the NH balers to compensate for the additional weight of the thrower on the back.  Is there anything else I need to consider before I move forward with this?

 

Thanks,

Andy

 

Bale Kickers and Throwers Recommendations