John Deere’s 8000-series forage harvesters have been on the market for some four years now and seem to be finding favour in certain areas of the country. Cheshire contracting firm R E Williams had one of the first in the country … and it’s now onto its second
There aren’t many people in the UK with quite as much experience of John Deere foragers as the Williams family. Based close to Chester with its own 455-cow dairy herd, for the past 30-odd years the family business has provided a silage-making service for other livestock outfits in the area. Initially trailed foragers of all makes and model were put to work but as the demand grew it rapidly became apparent that moving to a self-propelled machine was the only way the firm would keep up.
“We’d had several Claas Jaguar 40s, JF 1100s and John Deere trailers, but ultimately that arrangement couldn’t last with the amount of ground we had to cover,” explains Robin Williams. “So in 1992 we took the plunge and splashed out on a six-year-old John Deere 5820. At just shy of 300hp it was a huge step up in output, but, having done a fair bit of work, it needed quite a lot of spannering to keep it going. The dog clutches on the feed roller drive constantly gave out so we ended up keeping a complete box of spares on the machine. The other weakness was a problem we would become very familiar with: it had the dreaded coffin box between the drum and blower which was easy to stuff up and was really difficult to unblock.
Despite these issues, the 5820 had proved the self-propelled concept worked, so it was swapped for a fresher 5830. As the drive for extra foraging acres continued, bigger, newer machines followed…..
For more up-to-date farming news and reviews click here and subscribe now to profi for just £3.99 an issue.
