By Nick Fone

The first of Strautmann’s new self-propelled diet feeders to land on UK shores is due to make its debut appearance at the Royal Highland Show.

Although the German company’s forage-wagons, muck-spreaders and trailed feeder/mixers have been brought into GB for more than 15 years, it’s not until now that there’s been demand for self-powered units.

However, importer Opico said it had seen a shift in thinking in the dairy sector as a result of sustained periods of suppressed milk prices. 

“The levels of professionalism in the UK’s dairy industry have never been higher and part of that is an intense focus on costs,” said James Woolway, Opico MD.

“Cow rations are the biggest expense on any unit and they need to be right. But there’s a cost to that – the conventional set-up of a trailed mixer wagon, a tractor to pull it and a loader to fill it means there’s a lot of capital tied up and then the running costs of three separate machines.

“There’s still a big capital outlay for a self-propelled machine but the running costs immediately drop and the efficiency of the feeding operation is massively improved,” he pointed out.

“We’ve chosen to launch the self-propelled at the Highland because Strautmann already has such a strong customer base in Scotland and the dealer network to back it up.”

Significantly, its service manager, David Mein, is based in the Borders and will play a key role in providing the back-up for the new machines.

Opico is keenly aware of the necessity for top-notch after sales support for something as complex as a self-propelled feeder required to work 365 days a year.

To that end, every S-P unit will go out on farm with a full service and maintenance package which will run alongside a contract hire agreement.

Opico says it wants to encourage customers to hire, rather than buy to build confidence in the machine’s reliability and ongoing ownership costs.

“When we first looked into the market potential for self-propelled feeders in the UK, the two main concerns for dairy farmers were the initial purchase price of the unit and its potential value after a few years’ work,” explained Mr Woolway. 

“We’ve developed a fully serviced contract hire package specifically to overcome these concerns so that there’s a known monthly fixed running cost and no apprehension about second-hand values.”

The company’s proposal is to offer 36, 48 or 60-month contracts, depending on the set-up and anticipated workload for the machine. At the end of the hire term, there will be the option to purchase the feeder or update to a new one and hand the used machine back to Opico. 

Residual values are then the importer’s issue – something the company said it has no issue with, given the strong demand for Strautmann self-propelleds on the continent. 

Each agreement will be a bespoke package tailored to the needs of the individual business but to give potential customers an idea of the costs and to demonstrate the benefits over a trailed machine, Opico has put together a costings calculator. 

As an example, for a 300-cow herd averaging 10,000-litres with 150 followers, a self-propelled machine would cost £34.81/hour while the running costs of a tractor, trailed wagon and loader come in at £39.93/hour.

On top of that there’s reckoned to be a 45min/day time saving in the feeding operation, resulting in an additional potential saving of a £2500/year. Taking numbers to up over the 700-head mark, that figure increases to over £6500/year.

Opico argued that the savings aren’t purely financial. Clearly, there are big reductions in diesel and labour, with feeding time shaved by 25%, but there are other less tangible benefits. 

Ration quality and mixing are improved because of the chopping, tumbling action created by the cutter-head rotor and the loading conveyor. More critically, because ingredients are fed in proportionally rather than by a loader bucketful at a time, every dietary component arrives in the mix at the amount set by the nutritionist. 

If it looks like any material is going to be over the preset limit, the operator is able to reverse the loading conveyor before it reaches the tub. 

On top of that there are benefits at the clamp too. The cutter-head rotor leaves a smooth, undisturbed face so that air ingress into the silage is much reduced. This dramatically reduces wastage, according to the company. 

There are two ranges in the Strautmann self-propelled offering. The Vert-Mix SF line-up includes single- and twin-auger models from 11 cu m to 20 cu m. These are top-spec’ all bells-and-whistles machines, with touch-screen computer controls, four-wheel steering, four-wheel-drive and a 175hp John Deere six-cylinder power plant.

The simpler Sherpa comes with 12 cu m and 14 cu m tubs, a 144hp Perkins four-pot engine and rear wheel steering. Despite that, it’s reckoned to be capable of feeding up to 500 cows.

But, with a choice of either 15kph or 25kph transmissions, it’s probably a single site machine, whereas the 40kph on the high spec’ machine is better suited to multiple unit set-ups.

On capacity, Strautmann reckoned that due to the increased speed of the feeding operation, the size of a self-propelled machine’s tub needn’t be as large. As a guideline, where a unit that might normally consider a 18 cu m trailed wagon, a 14cu.m self-propelled unit will comfortably handle a similar workload.

“The extra efficiency of a S-P feeder means it doesn’t need to be such a big, bulky unit around the yard, especially when fitted with steering axles front and rear. Add to that the benefits of a better mix and the reduced running costs of a single machine and it all starts to stack up,” he added.