Large dairy herds need large mixer wagons to provide them with large amounts of feed. We take a tour of a new tri-axle, 40m³ machine that was recently delivered to a 1,400-head dairy farm in Kent
On the basis that cows need feeding every day of the year, there can be few agricultural machines with a more demanding existence than the mixer wagon. Responsible for providing feed rations to dairy and beef cattle through long winters and on into the summer months when supplementary buffer feeding is required, there is very little, if any, respite.
Reliability, then, is the order of the day and, while it could be said that designing a machine capable of mixing ingredients to create rations doesn’t generally require a high degree of sophistication, the repetitive nature of the job, the frequently adverse operating conditions and operators who are not normally renowned for their diligence when it comes to maintenance, mean that the mixer wagon needs to be robust.
Such a requirement is not lost on Peter Joules who, with his wife Hillary and son Rob, runs a 1,400-head dairy farm at PHR Farms, Brabourne, near Ashford, Kent. With the herd split into two groups, the main farm sees 950 autumn calving cows being milked in a 70-point rotary and, a couple of miles away, 450 spring calvers milked through a 22/44 swing-over herringbone.
“With the incoming heifers the herd size willincrease again this year,” says Mr Joules who, over the 12 years since taking on the tenancy has instigated the construction of extensive cubicle housing, milking parlours and a host of other developments needed to create the modern dairy unit that it now clearly is.
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