With yards spread over a four-mile radius of Lane End Farm, the ability to move kit quickly and easily has become a key requirement of the business.
“We’re not quite ring-fenced, so we have to operate with a degree of efficiency when moving between our two dairies, plus the beef cattle and young stock,” explains Martin Bennett, who runs the farm with wife Liz and their two sons William and Robin “If jobs can be finished sooner, there’s more time for other work.”
When it comes to bedding, the need for a powerful and efficient straw chopper saw the Bennett’s look at the latest 866 Pro, with a demonstration from Vincent Tractors quickly turning into a permanent addition to the farm’s machinery fleet.
“We needed a more productive and more powerful bale chopper,” he says. “We buy up to 30 lorry loads of straw each year, so it’s important that we can load the bale chopper with two big square bales, and move from yard to yard, bedding up the beef cattle, dry cows and herd replacements, as required.”
He says the simplicity of the trailed 866 Pro stood out.
“The control panel is very simple,” he says. “And the blowing performance is absolutely superb. Our buildings are about 45-50ft to the back walls, and it throws straw over that distance easily. We don’t need to run this machine flat-out.”
Martin says that the 866’s double rotor gives the ability to shred bales and chop straw with ease, and having gone from a shear-bolt protected driveline to one with a slip clutch, he says the 866 Pro is a big step forward.
“Shear bolts are just an inconvenience these days,” he says. “At least with a slip clutch you can easily reset the driveline, if there’s a blockage or you get a bad bale.”
Martin points out that throughput of the 866 Pro is impressive.
“Output is so much quicker than our old straw chopper,” he says. “It soon processes a bale. This is one of those jobs that now doesn’t take long to do.”
He has high praise for the wide spout, adding that straw can be blown in any direction without having to turn the machine around to blow on the opposite side of a passageway.
Compared to the farm’s previous bale chopper, he says the Kverneland 866 Pro is physically taller, which is a result of it double rotor assembly that sits in front of the flywheel. And the additional height makes it harder to see how much of a bale is left in the back.
“We’ve added a camera to look down over the bed,” he says. “It’s just useful to know what’s left in the back, as this machine is so good, bales can be gone in just a few minutes.”
