Tractor, harvester IT comes of age
Over the last halfdecade, digital technology has appeared to be the “must-have” for tractor and machinery companies, who believe that bringing IT to tractors and farming will offer its customers huge benefits.
As anyone will attest to – if they’re married to someone with horses, have kids with ponies or are foolish enough to own these animals themselves – a big downside is the large, regular mess they leave behind.
This is on top of the huge vet bills, costly feeds and never-ending expensive array of ‘must have’ equine accessories!
Years of trudging around paddocks and stables picking up horse pooh has made this self-confessed non-horse fan even more anti the equine beasts. Whether the job is done by pushing around a wheelbarrow or with a trailer behind the four-wheeler, cleaning up horse deposits is a tedious, laborious and smelly job. In fact, it really sucks!
However, there is one way to make this task not (actually, this is what it does) suck.
Enter the Rotovacuum outdoor vacuum—dubbed the Lady Muck – made by Ashburton-based manufacturers Rotowiper.
This bright orange miracle machine has turned one of the most unsatisfying and painful chores of this horse widower’s life into a something to actually look forward to. Unbelievable, but true!
The Lady Muck is a robust, quality-made machine that is light enough to push around by hand, but also has an adjustable tow bar making it ideal to hitch behind the ATV or even a ride-on lawn mower. The chassis is shot-blasted plastic and painted in the aforementioned bright orange livery.
The surprisingly powerful suction part of the machine is powered by a Stihl blower motor. This can be easily removed and used as a leaf blower, as all the attachments come with the Rotovacuum.
But back to the real action, once the two-stroke motor on the blower motor is up and running, it creates the suction that quickly slurps up all the offending horse droppings via a hand-held tube. This is then deposited into a 350-litre holding tank. Once the tank is full, the Lady Muck is easily unloaded by detaching the four clips securing the holding tank lid at the rear and tipping the contents out by lifting it up at the front end, near the tow bar.
As mentioned, the Rotovacuum’s powerful suction ability makes light work of all types of horse pooh – both fresh and dry – and will soon have your paddocks cleaner than Ron Brierley’s computer browser history (nowadays)!
However, cleaning up after horses is not the only use for this multi-functional piece of kit. With autumn upon us and all those messy leaves lying around, throw away the rake and simply suck them all up with the Lady Muck. It can also be used to clean out troughs, vacuum gutters, clear out under shearing sheds and even pick up hazelnuts and olives.
Priced at $3,950 – plus GST, the Lady Muck Rotovacuum is worth every penny.
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