Tractors up, hay equipment down
On the machinery sales front, the first quarter of the current financial year saw a good result in the tractor sector most relevant to the dairy industry – 40 to 100 PTO horsepower. Overall sales were up 17% on the same period for last year, with Victoria up a massive 30%.
Alan Kirsten of Agriview says that the good result reflects “a bit of a catch-up in the supply chain, but also owes a lot to better milk pricing and a favourable dairy outlook”.
Kirsten said the hay equipment market is subdued, with mowers and rakes particularly quiet.
“Baler sales are down 25% on last year, but the seasons are late and we could expect a kick along soon.
“The orders are slow, but agriculture is still a good place to be, compared with the rest of the economy.”
John Shannon, at Cobram Farm Equipment on the Murray River would agree with the hay situation.
“The crops are looking fantastic”, he told us, but he’s mystified that there is little activity on hay machinery.
“Contractors aren’t out doing much and generally there’s not much activity at all. We are currently in between demos of general machinery that will start early next year.”
New JD baler coming
Keep eyes and ears out for a new John Deere round baler to be released in the next few weeks, including, we believe, a new netwrap product, exclusive to John Deere.
Dairy Conference coming soon
An event to mark in your calendar is the tenth anniversary of the Australian Dairy Conference.
It will be staged at Lardner Park, near Warragul, on February 22-24.
The organisers are hoping for 500 delegates and say their motto is “design a great program – and they will come!”
Big results with robots
Rob Ciavatta at Dairy Tech South East, Mt Gambier, SA, is happy to report he is flat out with business at the moment, they have seven staff on the payroll in the dealership and are about to install their fifteenth robotic milking machine.
His patch is probably at the centre of robotic milking in Australia and he told us that one of his customers is said to have “the most efficient dairy in the world”, where one operator milks 500 cows. Some of them produce 60 – 70 litres a day and the milking machine gives an immediate display of fat and protein levels.
Automatic feeders all the go
Murray Tuck at Traf Tractors at Trafalgar in Gippsland says automatic feeding systems for calves and heifers are all the go down his way.
He told us he has a customer at Poowong with a four station Lely calf feeder set-up and two Cosmic grain feeders. The result is the farmer has two-year-old heifers producing 30 litres a day.
Ex-dairy farmer joins Tapex team
A former dairy farmer has taken up the role of territory manager for Tapex, looking after the Western District and most of the west of Victoria, including Bendigo, Cohuna and across to Horsham.
Anthony Watts was born on a dairy farm at Deans Marsh and worked on the family farm for 24 years straight from school.
He operated as a hay and silage contractor and was introduced to Tapex products in that role.
“We cut all our own hay and silage and I found the Tapex products absolutely wonderful. It solved all my problems”, Watts said.
He is based at Inverleigh, near Geelong, and can be contacted on 0408 497 611.
Contact Chris on 0417 735 001 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
