Straw bedder

[Barleycorn]

Yes, have a look at the Lucas G. Good machine. I appreciate you’re quite a bit north for our English importer, Halse, but I recommend their service, plain spoken sales and supply of parts next day delivery.

We had a small Lucas for 15 years, put many hundreds of tons through it. Wanted a bigger machine and bought a second hand Teagle, but honestly it's no match to the Lucas, although I hate the French as much as anyone. Agree that Halse's service (and prices) are second to none.

 

[Treemover]

We Demod all makes and bought a Lucas; demod again 2 years ago and bought our second Lucas. It’s so easy driven; our 35 hp kioti drives it no problem.

 

[Valmetal Inc]

 

[alan6430]

How is the Kuhn holding up wearing parts wise? How does it handle straw thats been outside a bit? will be buying a kuhn/McHale soon

We’ve put some new blades on and tightened the chain a few times. The spout swivel has worn out the teeth on the cog mechanism twice but we’ve given up on that, we blow straight in sheds any way so doesn’t matter

 

[Big_D]

What are you trying to bed? If general loose housing, Spread-a-bale does a good job if you have the space to operate it (long) and a handler able to take the weight
I did wonder about a spread a bale but space is our biggest constraint, tight turn into a 9' wide passage to bed the young calves. Need to bed those along with some older youngstock and the calving boxes

 

[Big_D]

Thanks all, had the McHale out today and have to say I was impressed. Have put a bale of haylage through all of them and the mchale was the only one where it didn't feel like it was struggling. The other 2 were grand on straw. The mchale was let down by a ridiculously long drawbar which meant it was a real struggle to manouvre it into the calf shed. Dealer rang mchale and a shorter drawbar is available. As a few people have mentioned its a good feature being able to engage blower and rotor independently. Don't want to be too harsh on the british machines but the standard of engineering on the mchale is far superior, the fold round tail lights being a good example. The bluetooth control on the teagle is a good idea but the box itself I found horrible to use, the Kidd box is simpler but better, but has to be taken out when hitching off. The mchale box makes the other 2 look amateurish and the cable can be disconnected leaving the box in the tractor. That said, whilst on paper the machines are very similar in size, the teagle is defenitely easier to manouvre and I have been offered a 3 year old machine which offers a bit of a saving on new. The only machine which doesnt get a bad review on here is the kuhn so perhaps i need to ask for a demo. Shall read up on the lucas too. Been a bit of an eye opener the whole experience as have never really demo'd machinery before, todays demo was streets ahead of the rest, the dealers wagon driver was so clued up and enthusiastic and the salesman was grand too, where as the kidd dealer sent out their demo guy even though I told them I was too busy that day then the salesman came out and his product knowledge was not the best and the chain for the pto shaft is missing which is pretty poor imo, the teagle dealer, the salesman was reasonably clued up and the demo guy was really nice guy but not the most organised, pto shaft had been bent at last place so new one was fitted but not cut to length. All by the way but it does affect your opinion of the product!

 

[Fragonard]

Thanks all, had the McHale out today and have to say I was impressed. Have put a bale of haylage through all of them and the mchale was the only one where it didn't feel like it was struggling. The other 2 were grand on straw. The mchale was let down by a ridiculously long drawbar which meant it was a real struggle to manouvre it into the calf shed. Dealer rang mchale and a shorter drawbar is available. As a few people have mentioned its a good feature being able to engage blower and rotor independently. Don't want to be too harsh on the british machines but the standard of engineering on the mchale is far superior, the fold round tail lights being a good example. The bluetooth control on the teagle is a good idea but the box itself I found horrible to use, the Kidd box is simpler but better, but has to be taken out when hitching off. The mchale box makes the other 2 look amateurish and the cable can be disconnected leaving the box in the tractor. That said, whilst on paper the machines are very similar in size, the teagle is defenitely easier to manouvre and I have been offered a 3 year old machine which offers a bit of a saving on new. The only machine which doesnt get a bad review on here is the kuhn so perhaps i need to ask for a demo. Shall read up on the lucas too. Been a bit of an eye opener the whole experience as have never really demo'd machinery before, todays demo was streets ahead of the rest, the dealers wagon driver was so clued up and enthusiastic and the salesman was grand too, where as the kidd dealer sent out their demo guy even though I told them I was too busy that day then the salesman came out and his product knowledge was not the best and the chain for the pto shaft is missing which is pretty poor imo, the teagle dealer, the salesman was reasonably clued up and the demo guy was really nice guy but not the most organised, pto shaft had been bent at last place so new one was fitted but not cut to length. All by the way but it does affect your opinion of the product!

We demoed Teagle and McHale.
We blocked the Teagle twice during the demo. The McHale blew straw further and the control box was so much easier to use. The separate controls for the blower and the feeder rotor is brilliant, I can't understand why Teagle don't have it, but maybe someone on here will explain why not.

 

[traineefarmer]

The rotor stop control is patented to Kuhn. McHale got a major wrist slapping for copying it.

...Allegedly.

 

[Lazy Eric]

The Teagle is a very capable machine if used with some common sense. The mchale is is a little more fool proof with the separate rotor engagement. I prefer having the belt drive compared to a chain / shear bolt. If the tension is kept correct you will have no issues. Ours blows 1000 5ft rounds a year. It’s a 2013/14 . On original belt.

 

[hally]

We have had both, Mchale superior by a mile.

 

[cows r us]

We have recently moved from teagle too McHale. The McHale is a far superior machine. It eats silage for fun. We had a lot of issues with the teagle, it kept blasting through shear bolts, was really noisy and very slow compared to the McHale. I like the fact you can keep the bale off the rotors of the McHale by pushing the rotor gaurds out.

 

[Chief1]

We have a Lucas at home great machine! Also use 2 teagles where I work and the Lucas is by far the better machine it blows and chops anything you put in it!

 

[Battlefield Machinery]

Try the new Kverneland 863! An absolute animal, they’ve gone back to basics, had the prototype at my dads farm for a month! Seriously more blow than a soho stripper!

 

[Shavings man]

It beats me how you guys don't get trouble with your stocks eyes flirting all that straw and stuff over them !

 

[Barleycorn]

It beats me how you guys don't get trouble with your stocks eyes flirting all that straw and stuff over them !

We've been blowing in straw for over 20 years and never had problems with eyes or respiration.

 

[DairyGrazing]

We've been blowing in straw for over 20 years and never had problems with eyes or respiration.

Would you blow it into a pen of weanlings, say 6months old?

 

[Shavings man]

We've been blowing in straw for over 20 years and never had problems with eyes or respiration.

Thanks for reply pleased you don't I once had a demonstration with one about 20 odd years ago thought about mixing chopped straw with wood shavings but the dust that came out this round bale chopper was unreal so binned that idear ! Regards .

 

[An Gof]

Would you blow it into a pen of weanlings, say 6months old?

Doing that here and no problem.
I resisted buying a straw chopper/spreader for years because of these perceived problems. How wrong I was and how I wish I had one before. Best labour saving machine I have bought for years.

 

[DairyGrazing]

Doing that here and no problem.
I resisted buying a straw chopper/spreader for years because of these perceived problems. How wrong I was and how I wish I had one before. Best labour saving machine I have bought for years.

Thanks I'm chucking out 20 6 stringers twice a week in the winter. Need to make life easier!

Do you push them out of the way first?

 

[Optimus]

Same here .been using a bedder for 20 years.never had an issue , use it on new borns all the time.just have to make sure you don't bury them.
Just bought a new McHale cracking machine.especially like the joystick control for the spout.