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Featuring heavy-duty construction, the bucket/grab is said to handle maize silage or baled materials such as the lucerne or rye straw easily.
Peter Scheres, alongside son in law Aaron Pascoe and his wife Kate, operates Twin Oaks, near Lichfield in the Waikato. The property of 115ha runs 420 cows, delivering around 270,000 kgMS per annum under a System 5 operation.
Production is driven by a TMR feeding regime, delivery the cows around 18.5kg DM/day with a ration made up of lucerne, maize silage, rye straw, soya bean meal, tapioca pellets, molasses and minerals.
Such a system requires reliable loading equipment, so when a tractor/ loader needed replacement, the business decided to settle on a dedicated compact wheel loader, in this case, a 51hp Kubota R540, that offered a very useable 1,510kg lift capacity.
Realising that reach over the side of their large mixer wagon would be marginal, the farm approached local manufacturer Kaimai Steel – makers of the well known Pearson brand – looking at the possibility of building a toe-tip bucket fitted with a top grab to deal with the farm’s wide range of feed inputs.
The resultant unit, now with several months of operation under its belt, has exceeded expectations, reports Aaron, “easily reaching and tipping over the side of the mixer wagon, while the grab ensures a clean face on the maize clamp and helps reduce secondary fermentation”.
He also notes that the bucket/grab takes a “bite” of around 1,200kg with each mouthful, useful when the maize silage makes up around half of each 12,000kg mix.
Interestingly, the loader/bucket combination has also reduced loading times over the previous tractor/loader set by around 45 minutes each load, resulting in 90 minutes being saved each day.
Featuring heavyduty construction, the bucket/grab is said to handle maize silage or baled materials such as the lucerne or rye straw easily, with the latter easily pulled apart by the grab before being deposited in the mixer wagon. Available in 2.1 or 2.4m widths, effectively offering 0.98 or 1.12 cubic metre capacities, the machine features key features like protected rams for the toe-tip mechanism, a heavy-duty grab, grease points on all pivot pins throughout and a choice of mounting brackets for loader, telehandler and wheeled loader set-ups.
Both Pete and Aaron praise the general construction of the bucket, but importantly praise the service provided by Pearson, who designed and manufactured the bucket quickly and allowed them to support a local manufacturer.
While feeding dairy animals in New Zealand is largely centred around feed trailers, mixer wagons or baleage, one wonders whether there is a place for robotic feeders, particularly in South Island locations, where cows are housed during winter or full time.
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