Straw chopper and calves

[sh40]

Looking at a second hand kuhn Straw chopper. How do these machines get on bedding calve sheds with valves in the pins? Is it OK or is there too much dust? Shed would be airy enough.

Will it chop the straw up too much or is chopped straw a better job for bedding calves?

 

[Serup]

We have used a Kuhn primor 3560 for 20 years and now have a teagle 8555. We use about 5-7 bigbales per day for bedding everything from 2-3 month up to milking cows. The amount of dust is dependant on quality of straw. Bale it dry and it won’t be so bad. We use the best bales for tmr and the smalles calves.

 

[sh40]

I only need to bed calves until they are about 3 months old and then they are out to grass. Is it suitable at all for calves just a week or two old?

 

[Serup]

We have calves under 4-6 weeks in small huts, so we can’t straw them directly. We put it on the floor infront of them and straw them by hand. Much easier that dividing big bales directly by hand, but also more dust everywhere and not everything end up in the huts. For the timesaving we do it like that anyway, and then it’s not big chunks.
Only for small calves i probably would’t buy one unless it’s for many. I have about 30-40 calves like this, the rest is in bigger boxes that we straw directly by machine.

 

[som farmer]

fine if you can guarantee no stones in the straw, they can do some serious damage to a calve, a lesson learnt by experience !

older cattle, we take the risk, this year, bales fall apart, so just put a bale in and spread.

sore topic, son and l were busy yesterday, the p/t was asked to bed down, put the bales in, didn't take net off, son had to spread them late last night
not only that, left bales/bucket, in the way, of all the feed silos, had to move them, before mixing TMR this morning

mid feb, 8/10 weeks to turnout, then he's going but there's nobody else about, what do you do ? He's getting worse by the day, wants the work, but doesn't want to actually work. Not so bad if you are there, but if not............. 7 hrs yesterday, to do what son does in 1.5 hours.

rant over, but just watch out for stones in the straw. We had flints in one load, year or so ago, sparks would go out with the straw, hand spread them !!

 

[Party Pete]

I bed everything with straw chopper from 2 weeks . If you have good straw there’s no dust and the machine just needs to be a little over tick over it comes out nice and gently . My pens for small calves are only 15 foot deep so not needing to blow it far

 

[sh40]

Just to add to this. Do ye recommend electric or cables? Bearing in mind the machine in my budget will probably be 5 to 10 years old. Is there much to go wrong with electric?

 

[Serup]

Just to add to this. Do ye recommend electric or cables? Bearing in mind the machine in my budget will probably be 5 to 10 years old. Is there much to go wrong with electric?

On my Kuhn the only electric problems i had, was that the rubber cover on the buttons wore off and then they slowly got full of dust. 2 seconds with the airgun and they worked again. I changed a few that was worn out, but they where cheap. I wouldn’t worry on a system like that. The teagle i have now, is with bluetooth, time will tell how that hold up. It’s 3 years and 2500 hours from new now. Maintenance cost on the teagle is higher, but the version i have, can chop straw, which adds considerable to the work load, as we chop 500 bales/year.
The thing i miss the most from the Kuhn, is the belt drive of the rotor and the low cost of running. If i didn’t need the chopping function, i would hands down go with a Kuhn again.