Feed pad with rubber matting hailed as game changer
For Otago farmers Michelle and Rogan Borrie, a newly constructed feed pad on one of their three farms has been a game changer.
Already well known for its bigger 500-litre MT single-axle mixer tankers and the larger 1,000-litre tandem-axle MTF mixer tanker/feeders, offering the scope to feed up to feed up to 80 calves, for the 2022 season, rearers will also be able to access the Stallion MT250 mobile feeder.
The MT 250-litre mobile calf feeder is drawn by three wheels and includes several compelling features.
Featuring a tridem undercarriage, the aerodynamic, selfcleaning, self-mixing and self-distributing mobile feeder includes a threemetre delivery hose and flow meter, said to be capable of mixing and delivering a mix of 250 litres of calf milk replacers to mobs of 80 to 100 calves in five to eight minutes.
Equipped with a genuine Honda four-stroke motor, with the option of an electric start system, the unit also incorporates a stainless-steel mixing system.
Already popular with calf rearers throughout NZ, Australia, England, France and Germany, Stallion’s Grant Allen said the request for a competitively priced, mid-size mobile feeder originally came out of Ireland. Originally, the company made an electric option for enclosed barns, but realised the need for a petrol- driven option for Kiwi farmers, who often feed calves outside.
“Everyone likes Honda-based pumps, so these units are bullet proof, easy to use and easy to pull. There is little to go wrong as in reality there is only an ultrareliable four stroke motor which is also inexpensive to run.”
Available in the home market with the electric and petrol-driven options, Grant notes that many users are taking up the ease of use option by specifying the electric start system. Grant also noted that during the design process, the company designers were under instruction to make that feeder look like a Ferrari rather than a milk tank on wheels, because it costs the same amount of money to design something bad as it does to design something good, so the slimline format was a deliberate move.
As part of the design and proving phase, Grant Allen and wife, Andrea, own a 380-cow dairy farm near Palmerston North have the ideal testing base that has been used extensively since their purchase of the company 13 years ago.
