Are straw choppers really worth it?

Location
cumbria
I'm on iPhone which takes 'live' photos, so hold your finger on and they show as short vids, these 'live' photos cannot be directly uploaded to TFF as a moving image so you need to convert them to a linkable gif file. Download an app called giphy, open giphy and press plus button I think, select live photo you want, add tags if you like and then arrow to upload. You'll get an offer to join but I skip this, then press the button for a link which you cut and paste into photo attachment link in tff. Job done. I guess you have to register with giphy to find the gif file later on.

i presume android would be similar.

Thanks for trying, mine just seems to take a gazillion photos.

The rest is in the too complicated folder?.

Shame as, as good as photos of folks cows are, you can't beat seeing them walk.
 

Forever Fendt

Member
Location
Derbyshire
Wouldn't be without mine. I have a second hand Jeulin (£3K) on the back of a 42 year old MF 2620. 180 cows and calves can be bedded in 7 sheds can be bedded in about 40 mins with 4x3 bales and it will blow it about 45'. I have seen a huge reduction in straw use (prob about 30%). The cattle are clean and happy. I agree it does make a little more mess outside, but it does mean, at least for me anyway, that it is much more of a one man system.
Much easier to muck out as you are not dragging half the shed with you. Much easier to spread and less hard on both the handler and the muck spreader. You get much better muck and can spread more/acre as it breaks down so much better and you don't get lumps.
It is without doubt, one of my better buys and if it broke down for any length of time, I would be straight out to buy another one!!
I am glad I read this because I would have wrote exactly the same I did notice your machine did send the straw a hell of a lot further than my Teagle although the straw did not look as smashed up as mine out of a class combine
 

Forever Fendt

Member
Location
Derbyshire
Guess it depends on the farm... we've a handful of tractors that mostly just sit around all winter and are busy in the summer..

Can't see why anyone would feed silage through one though.. waste of diesel in my opinion.. and it fluffs it up too much so you can't get much in the feeder ..
I had the intention of feeding silage out on the central feed passage but as you say it fluffed it up and I think they were pulling to much through and wasting it and it was going to shorten the life of the machine a lot as it gave it a lot more gyp than straw I now use a hustler bale unroll this is a brilliant tool for my job
 

cousinjack

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
I had the intention of feeding silage out on the central feed passage but as you say it fluffed it up and I think they were pulling to much through and wasting it and it was going to shorten the life of the machine a lot as it gave it a lot more gyp than straw I now use a hustler bale unroll this is a brilliant tool for my job
I was keen on a bale unroller, and did have plans to mount it on the front of the tractor that runs the straw chopper (mf390) so as to save having another tractor tied up.

But decided that it was far more economic to just put the bales beside the barrier and let them eat straight from the bale.. once they've eaten one half, just push the rest in ..
 

cousinjack

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Wouldn't be without mine. I have a second hand Jeulin (£3K) on the back of a 42 year old MF 2620. 180 cows and calves can be bedded in 7 sheds can be bedded in about 40 mins with 4x3 bales and it will blow it about 45'. I have seen a huge reduction in straw use (prob about 30%). The cattle are clean and happy. I agree it does make a little more mess outside, but it does mean, at least for me anyway, that it is much more of a one man system.
Much easier to muck out as you are not dragging half the shed with you. Much easier to spread and less hard on both the handler and the muck spreader. You get much better muck and can spread more/acre as it breaks down so much better and you don't get lumps.
It is without doubt, one of my better buys and if it broke down for any length of time, I would be straight out to buy another one!!
How does the Massey cope on cold mornings? We had a 2645 back in the day and it was a devil to start at the best of times ! :ROFLMAO:
 

Forever Fendt

Member
Location
Derbyshire
I was keen on a bale unroller, and did have plans to mount it on the front of the tractor that runs the straw chopper (mf390) so as to save having another tractor tied up.

But decided that it was far more economic to just put the bales beside the barrier and let them eat straight from the bale.. once they've eaten one half, just push the rest in ..
my central feed pass needs to be eaten up so I can back down and blow straw in from it so put the correct amount in each day its on a 12m handler so I can reach into open yard and unroll a bale into feeders without fear of trapping a head in the feeder
 

Blue.

Member
Livestock Farmer
How does the Massey cope on cold mornings? We had a 2645 back in the day and it was a devil to start at the best of times ! :ROFLMAO:

I’ve had 3 Masseys with the 6,354 engine they were all complete tw@ts to start,great when running though.

I’d have thought the new high speed starters available nowadays would transform them.
 

Blue.

Member
Livestock Farmer
How does the Massey cope on cold mornings? We had a 2645 back in the day and it was a devil to start at the best of times ! :ROFLMAO:

I’ve had 3 Masseys with the 6,354 engine they were all complete tw@ts to start,great when running though.

I’d have thought the new high speed starters available nowadays would transform them.
 

Extreme Optimist

Member
Livestock Farmer
How does the Massey cope on cold mornings? We had a 2645 back in the day and it was a devil to start at the best of times ! :ROFLMAO:
Mine's not bad at all. It turns over a few times before growling into life, but then it's the same through the summer. I wish nrewer tractors were as reliable and cheap and easy to mend. It will probably do another 40 years!! :ROFLMAO: It certainly doesn't owe me anything. I paid £4k for it 28 years ago!!
 
I bought one about 15yrs ago (pushing bales about by yourself isnt the sport i enjoy much) doesnt do much couple of bales a day over winter and for most of the time had to take it off most days as i had one tractor ,im spoilt as its fixed to a tractor permanently this winter initially someone said what did you get that for but not long after that a few got them nothing was said, theres other machines about if they do the job good but if you like bedding animals with a fork go for it ,I dont and dont want to!!!
 

The Grinch

Member
Location
Staffordshire
We have a Skovbo 90x120 strawchopper on the front of a medium size pivot steer. Massive time saver bedding up 90 cubicles, couple of loose boxes and two straw yards. Doesn’t tie a tractor up and very manoeuvrable with it being on the pivot steer, only issue is low roofs when it has to tilt back. Does it save straw? I would say yes but not massive amounts the biggest saving is time and energy ( you don’t have to maul big slabs of straw about and split them by hand) like all strawchoppers doesn’t like sh!t straw and can block but all you have to do if it really blocks up is tip it out and start again. We have found this year that straw doesn’t seem to be going as far as normal years, lad down the road has a Teagle trailed and finding the same thing.
 

choochter

Member
Location
aberdeenshire
I'd be lost without mine, 120 x 40 lying area bedded down with 2 rounds in around 3 minutes
My old one chopped the straw a bit, this seems to throw it out as good as the day it was baled and makes a very fluffy bed and nice clean happy cow's
As a comparison, and in the spirit of scientific research, I hand bedded a 100 x 50 ft shed today, well, 4 and a half of the 5 bays.
bed_shed_1 - Copy.jpg

Start time 4pm. Finish time 5.33 pm. This included feeding the cat (twice) and dealing with an escapee.
bed_shed_2 - Copy.jpg

However, did not include time spent being apprehended by Nugget for a scratch.
bed_shed_4 - Copy.jpg

Had to slip out through the creep gate to avoid getting detained indefinitely
bed_shed_5 - Copy.jpg

Time well spent.
 
Last edited:

cows r us

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Buckinghamshire
Hoping to have some time to sit down and do my budget later and just wondering. It’s semi on the list but as im bedding down now I can’t see that the cost justifies the time saving.
Currently we just do it by hand for the calves and the bullers we boot out twice a week and shake it around a bit with a handler.

we would require another tractor to power it and the purchase of the machine itself. I’m thinking the money would be better spent building a bigger shed to reduce stocking rate/ fit some cubicles.

posted in the dairy section in order to get a dairy persons view. Baring in mind i absolutely hate greasing machines because the barstewards guns never work.
If your bedding down a big herd they are worth their weight, but smaller herds probably can't justify one. Have you looked at a spreader bale. We use a spread a bale and a McHale. We brought the spread a bale to bed down young calves. The bigger machines make to much dust for younger animals which affects their lungs, isn't a problem in older cattle though.
 

cows r us

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Buckinghamshire
Well I wouldn't want to be in there with all that dust would you?
How long before its seen as wrong?
We moved over from a teagle to a McHale this year. That has made a big difference as well. The teagle seemed to smash it to oblivion. I think the type of shed also has something to do with it. Our larger sheds have much better airflow and the dust disappears straight away. The older lower sheds don't suit a bedding machine as the dust seems to linger.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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