Recent content by Practical Farm Ideas

Self propelled forage harvesters such as this New Holland 1900 can become totally worn out in the chopping department, yet the whole motive part remains in perfectly good condition. Rather than accepting a poor part exchange for the worn out machine, Cardigan contractor Graham Parkes held on to...

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Many people use flat 8 handlers for big square bales, but many realise before too long that they were designed for lighter loads. Frames and tines bend and the machine becomes unusable. With some extra metal fitted, the Browns or other flat 8 is a tool which will last for years, and has the...

Plastic drain pipe has all the qualities needed for a trough for sheep or calves - flexible, very strong and the big advantage is the cost. You get this 160mm pipe in 3 metre lengths for less than £10/m, and remember that each metre provides double the troughing. Smaller diameters like 110mm...

Here's a simple little device which you can remember to make before shearing next year. It allows you to close wool sheets without damaging finger nails or using super human strength. The bar has the end of a bent nail welded to the end, and a complete nail that's bent over and fitted in a hole...

Meat can get bruised when flanks and hindquarters are crushed against a steel RSJ gatepost or even one made from box section. Fitting a plastic drain pipe around the post provides a smooth surface which has a bit of flexibility, reducing any damage. Cattle have always liked to charge down...

This outdoor penning remains one of the best designed and constructed arrangements, despite the fact that it is now more than 15 years old. The beauty is its flexibility, in that it enables a small team to sort cattle into groups using the various internal gateways, and prepare them to be loaded...

Will get @farmideas to get in contact - always great to visit more farmers and see more ideas.

Would certainly make for another interesting project to write up.

The neatly designed dual purpose Ifor Williams livestock trailer is less dual purpose of the top takes a sweaty hour to remove. It gets left on and another trailer used instead. Aubrey McCullough from Co Down has a very simple method which involves nothing more than using the jack on the...

Many people tackle the job of repairing ruts around field entrances and across slopes through compression. They get the roller out and flatten the high spots. Edwin Arblaster, Carmarthen, made this machine some ten years ago to do the job differently, as he wanted to actually move the earth from...

That would be great if you could @Kiwi Pete

Good idea @farmideas

A recent visit to Ireland showed that many livestock farmers there were changing habit - rather than stacking silage bales on their sides they are putting them on their bottoms, quite often in a single layer, but sometimes two or three. A glance at the stored bales shows how they remain...

In the 1970s Lely produced a new type of sprayer called the Hydraspin. Controlled Droplet Spraying (CDA) involved an atomising cone which was spun at high speed while the chemical was fed in, and this produced a mist of equal sized droplets. The technique was short-lived in the UK, but...