Stihl Launches BT140, Its First Battery-Powered Auger
With battery tools becoming more widespread and more importantly, productive and reliable, it was only time before we saw augers or post-hole borers.
The regular use of sheep handlers and cattle crushes for carrying out animal health programmes has helped reduce costs and drive production efficiency.
The Combi Clamp Sheep Handler and Heavy-Duty Cattle Crushes promote less stress and more efficiency, while also considering animal welfare – values in the forefront of the mind of the manufacturer.
The Combi Clamp Sheep Handler is manually operated. It uses the operator’s body weight, applied to a pressure plate, for routine animal welfare tasks. At the same time, it reduces physical demands – allowing increased precision in tasks like vaccinating.
In addition, unlike some emerging solutions, sheep are always kept on their feet.
This prevents the risk of being kicked and allows multiple tasks to be performed together with one pass over the handler.
Likewise, the same principles of simplicity, safety and efficiency have been applied to the Heavy-Duty Cattle Crushes.
Split and top-access gates promote access and drafting options. Meanwhile, the Auto Head Yoke, offers stress-free, automatic catching of polled or horned animals. When working alone, the automatic catch and reset of the head bail gives the operator increased confidence in knowing they will never miss an animal.
www.combiclamp.co.nz
Farmgate lamb prices are down by 8%, beef cattle by 4.5% and farm expenditure up by 4.2%.
Kiwifruit growers are watchful but remain optimistic as concerns around the potential effects of the El Niño weather pattern this season.
Almond hulls sourced from Australian orchards may have the potential to help New Zealand cows reduce emissions, boost milk yield and lower input costs.
Striking a balance between meeting the needs of industry to speed up approval time for products but on the other hand ensuring that risks are properly assessed.
Surprised, humbled and quite thrilled. That’s the reaction of James Allen, one of the founding partners and now chief executive of AgFirst, on being made a life member of the Institute of Rural Professionals.

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