Simple scraper with clever features
Many familiar, straightforward items of kit do a good job day in, day out. For example, the Zocon modular rubber scraper from importer Ag-Attachments.
John and Jan Bellamy milk 618 cows off a 222ha property at Ruawai. Like many farms around Ruawai the property is sensitive to pugging damage, especially during spring and Bellamy had a 114 x 18m two-bay feedpad built in July 2012.
Though Bellamy flood-washes the pad, removing solid debris had become a serious issue, especially as the floor of the pad was lined with rubber costing $80-85/m to increase cow comfort and reduce health problems. “When a tractor starts ripping holes in the rubber flooring, cleaning can be a costly exercise.”
Newman Engineering’s mini-De-Crap-It scraper was closest to what he was looking for but Bellamy says with a face of 1.8m it didn’t have enough surface area to meet requirements. “It would have taken forever to get the floor clean, especially over that area.”
Bellamy asked Newman principal John Bishop to add 1.1m wings to the scraper – a change so successful the company has made the larger quad scraper available on a wider scale.
The mini De-Crap-It is mounted on the front of the quad with a faceplate with support coming from a frame clipped onto the towbar. The 300mm high rubber blade is raised and lowered using a chain at the front of the quad.
The extra wings make an electrical winch necessary which is powered by the bike’s battery but Bellamy says it has been a time saver, especially when cleaning out the feed pad. “It just takes 10 minutes to do the entire feed pad and that includes the time needed to put the scraper on and take it off. I’d hate to think how long it would take with the original scraper.”
While Bellamy says extensions for the scraper have increased its capacity threefold, power requirements are surprisingly light. “My 500cc Honda quad can handle it quite easily, and I am able to run up and down the feed pad in third or fourth gear. In fact I think you could stick it on a 350cc bike without too much hassle.”
Bellamy has used the scraper for more than his feedpad and says one of the wings can be tilted back to push up silage and grains against the shoulder for easier access by cows. “I actually used it on the limestone race next to the cowshed in the springtime when there was 75-100ml of slurry on the race. I used it to take that away and it did really well and cleared it away.”
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