Friday, 13 April 2018 12:55

Plastic too good for steel

Written by 
Alistair Hay with his bale feeder. Alistair Hay with his bale feeder.

The ability of farmers to come up with practical solutions to onfarm problems never ceases to amaze. Some are extremely clever in their simplicity, e.g. the Three Rivers bale feeder.

Alistair Hay farms 1000ha near Fairlie, Mid Canterbury, rearing deer and beef and offering dairy support. 

Using traditional steel and sheet metal ring feeders, he found they were heavy, awkward to handle, suffered a hard life when getting moved around with tractor frontloaders, and quickly fell apart.

Looking to build something that was lighter, easier to handle and ultimately more durable he built a bale feeder from alkathene water pipe. 

Trial and error through five or six prototypes resulted in the unit he sells today; it uses medium density pipe for the main support rings and polypropylene uprights that started life as risers for irrigation systems.

Now after five years he has 600 units in service.

The 1.8m diameter units are the most popular, accommodating 16 cattle yet weighing only 35kg; they are easy to roll or slide about and a breeze to flip over bales.

Says Hay, “We had to mess around a bit to get the first units right, but it all came together when we discovered fusion butt welding for the main support rings”. 

Feeders are available in several sizes for cattle, sheep and horses, and are said to be extremely durable, even in mobs of bulls, and are likely to outlast similar size conventional steel units.

www.balefeeder.weebly.com 

Featured

Editorial: Sensible move

OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Cuddling cows

OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…

Bikinis in cowshed

OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter