“Before I got the 863 shredder bedder, I had been using around 100 round bales of straw each week for our 200 pedigree Sussex cows, plus followers,” explains Martin, pictured. “Now, consumption has dropped to around 60 bales.”
“The 863 simply processes bales far better than just unrolling them, or letting the stock knock them around once the net is removed,” he says. “Blowing performance is great and our muck is a much more consistent quality from having better straw distribution.”
Supplied by Lister Wilder, the trailed 863 shredder bedder will process around 2,500 bales/year. While the majority are five-foot straw bales used for both feeding and bedding, a proportion of bales will also include four-foot round bale hay.
“I can now feed the hay bales through the 863 shredder,” he says. “The spout is very easy to control, as is the flow of material going through the machine. I can drop hay down the side of the 863 right against the feed barriers, and this leaves the material in a teased-out fluffy row that is easy for the livestock to eat.”
Martin reckons the switch to a shredder bedder has made life much more efficient in many ways.
“It’s much more than better use of straw and hay,” he says. “It’s turned bedding into a less frequent and much faster process, which also gives me time for other work.”
He says that while the rear door affords self-loading, he prefers to use the farm’s telehandler, and then use the rear door and its adjustable bale bar to simplify net removal.
“I’m really pleased with how it operates,” he says. “While you can add more blades to the rotor for a finer chop, the results I get are superb. It doesn’t smash the straw, and it continues to process poorer quality, wetter bales, into something that can be fully utilised.”
