Buying a Hay Trailer to Fit Your Needs & Budget

Deciding What You Need: How Many Bales are You Hauling?

The biggest factor in buying a hay trailer is the number of bales you’re hauling each year.

Only haul a hundred bales a year? The Competitor Hay Handler works great.
Hauling a thousand bales? The Red Rhino is good for that.
Got several thousand bales of hay to haul? The Red Ox is for you.

Some ranchers go for the Red Ox even if they only haul 500 bales a year – they just want the heaviest built trailer. They don’t want to work on it. They don’t want to rebuild it. They just want it to last.

The Heaviest-Built Trailers Out There

The Red Rhino and Red Ox hay trailers are the heaviest-built trailers out there. All our tires are 10-ply tires, which you can upgrade if you want to. Most of our gooseneck hay trailers have tandem axles on them, so two axles, four tires.

The frame on our hay trailers is wider and taller than competitor trailers. So it has more stability and allows the bales to roll off of the trailer. Our main tube—the torque tube, the overall foundation of the trailer—is made out of 8 5/8″OD .322 wall pipe. This weighs more than 30 pounds per foot, 30% more than our competitors’ trailers.

The Competitor Hay Handler is the economy model for people keeping an eye on their budget. The Red Rhino is a solid mid-level trailer. The Red Ox is the diamond level, the absolute cream of the crop.

Keep Your Trailer Steady When Loading

If you want the trailer to stay put, grab our optional stinger kit. You can drop this down when you’re loading these trailers from the rear. It’s hooked up to the pickup and those stingers can fold down in front of the front axles.

So when you’re pushing against that trailer and your pickup with the tractor with a bale on it, the stinger will hold that trailer in place. So you’re not pushing against the transmission of your pickup.

Built for the Long Haul

We’ve had numerous testimonials from ranchers who have been using our hay trailers for years.

Bryant Reeves, the former NBA player, bought two Red Rhinos for his ranch out in Gans, Oklahoma, about seven or eight years ago. And he told one of our salesmen those two trailers have hauled more than 40,000 bales in that period.

Another rancher told one of our salesmen he was trying to talk a friend of his into buying a Red Rhino instead of going for a cheaper hay trailer. The rancher didn’t own one himself, but he could tell the difference in quality.

What’s the Best Option for Your Budget?

It’s just a matter of what your budget is. If you can afford a BMW or a Lexus, you go buy one or two. If you can’t afford one, you buy a Dotson. Buy something that’s going to be the best option for your budget.