TMR diet feeders: Salute a humble workhorse

October 23, 2009

Despite the best efforts of manufacturers, self-propelled diet feeders remain a rarity among UK dairy farmers. Andy Collings considers whether the industry has now advanced sufficiently to make such machines a viability.

While the UK agricultural industry accepts the need for self-propelled forage harvesters, beet harvesters, potato harvesters, mowers and sprayers, there appears to be a reluctance to give the same support to self-propelled diet feeders.

This is perhaps strange when you consider a self-propelled diet feeder is likely to be working every day of the year while most other powered machines will spend months of the year in the barn.

There is little doubt manufacturers of trailed diet feeders have done a good job in recent years convincing livestock farmers to purchase machines to create home-mixed rations.

The financial advantages of using home-grown produce, and the ability to tune rations to match production needs, are now well accepted. But, whether by design or otherwise, there has been little interest from major players to introduce self-propelled machines, although, to be fair, some have made a tentative prod at marketing them and there are of course UK-based importing companies which have them on their books.

The latest manufacturer to attempt to crack the UK market is Kverneland who are currently promoting self-propelled versions of its Siloking diet feeder. Built in Germany, the Prestige range offers capacities from 12 to 22cu.m with a 300hp, 30cu.m due to make its appearance at Agritechnica.

According to Dan Crowe, Kverneland’s diet feeder specialist, the time could now be right for dairy farmers to have a look at what self-propelled can offer in terms of financial saving and accurate rations.

“The dairy industry has been through some tough times and, as a result, has learned to acknowledge the costs involved in milk production,” he says. “A closer look at the cost of a self-propelled machine may surprise some by revealing it is not out of line with those of a tractor, loader and trailed diet feeder.”

Mr Crowe points out that a 175hp, Iveco-powered 22cu.m version of a Prestige self-propelled, retails at about £145,000, while a tractor, loader and similar sized trailed diet feeder would cost a similar amount.

Fuel consumption

“On most big dairy farms the tractor and diet feeder remain permanently attached and the loader is never allowed to go far away,” he says, and adds the total amount of fuel used would also be significantly greater.

But there’s more. He also points out the machine’s ability to leave a clean undisturbed face to the clamp when loading silage helps to reduce secondary fermentation is seen as a big plus. The milled silage is elevated into the twin auger mixing chamber.

As with all ingredients, the weight of each is displayed on an in cab screen – the elevator is stopped as soon as the required weight is in the hopper and the rest is returned to store by reversing the elevator.

“It’s just so much more accurate than dribbling the odd kilo out of a loader bucket,” he insists. “And much quicker too in that a loader has to spend time taking surplus ingredients to store.”

Mr Crowe says ingredients carried any distance in a bucket can be lost by wind or just by being spilt. Over a year, he suggests these losses can add up to several thousand pounds when expensive blends are carried about.

The ingredients are mixed using Kverneland’s twin auger system – the augers can be activated from the cab when needed so over-mixing can be avoided, rather than leaving them to rotate as the ingredients are added.

When mixed, the load is driven directly to the feed passage and, rather than having a tractor and trailer to manoeuvre through and around buildings, the self-propelled is driven as a single unit.

Single joystick

For the operator, a single joystick provides all the key controls for speed and direction along with control of the milling and elevator. Cameras at the rear of the machine and in the mixing hopper, keep the operator informed of proceedings as the feed is exited from the machine. A typical load, mix and feed cycle would be about 15 minutes, giving the 22cu.m a 40/t per hour potential.

Apart from a mechanical drive to the two augers, the other powered functions, including the transmission, are hydrostatic and, as such, require little by way of maintenance.

“For a machine which is probably going to be used every day of the year, I think there is a good case for using a self-propelled,” he says. “The accuracy of its rations, the elimination of losses, and the saving in labour and fuel are all cost reductions a dairy farmer should now be looking at.”

While the arguments put forward by Mr Crowe for a self-propelled diet feeder are, on the face of it, convincing, there is still the question of the high initial investment which many dairy farmers may find hard to make.

Dairy farmers, it has to be said, are stock men and, while such investment in cows and milking machinery appears to make sense, a big machinery investment is not so easy to come to terms with.