Inventions comp: Intermediate category winners
We had nearly 50 entries for this year’s farm inventions competition, ranging from a simple bale carrier to a fully-fledged forage wagon. We round up the winner and runners-up in the intermediate category.
WINNER: Paul Spinks’ chaser bin
Chaser bins are expensive machines to buy new, but this home-made version made by Paul Spinks, Skeyton, Norfolk, was rather cheaper to produce.
Called the Skeyton Chaser Bin, it consists of two unloading augers from a pair of old Claas Senator combines retrieved from a scrap yard. Power comes from a hydraulic motor already on the farm. The tailgate on the trailer was bolted shut and one of the original tailgate rams is used to fold the augers together. Paul uses the chaser to load lorries directly from the field before the crop is taken to three long-term storage sites up to 30 miles away. Since the photo was taken the machine has been sprayed in Baileys green.
RUNNER-UP: Alex King’s bale transporter
Alex King from Ormiston, East Lothian, speeded up the job of shifting round bales by designing this bale frame. It fits a flat trailer and will transport 22 1.8m (6ft) diameter bales without having to use ropes or straps. The bales are held securely and comply with all the road transport legislation, he points out.
There’s a 1.2m (4ft) high frame on three sides of the trailer, with a second frame hinged along one long side at the top of the first frame. This second frame is lifted to a raised position by the front-end loader or telehandler before it starts loading the bales. The frame is held in an open position by spring catches.
Ten bales are placed on the base of the trailer, then the frame is lowered to form a cradle for a further 12 bales on top.
The weight of the bales is directly on the floor of the trailer, not on the frame, and cross tie-bars give strength to the frame. The transporter doesn’t involve any hydraulics or electrics of its own and needs only one moving part and two spring catches to work.
THIRD PRIZE: Craig Peddie’s water bowser
Craig Peddie has a 250-sow outdoor pig herd in Fife, Scotland. In winter the water pipes and troughs freeze up, so he used to drag around a 1,500 litre water tank and fill the troughs by gravity. However this took up to eight hours a day.
The answer was to make his own bowser. He attached a 5,000 litre water tank to the chassis of an old dungspreader, added a pto-powered water pump plus a 25m hose reel and side boom.
The side boom can be lowered so that he simply drives along the fence line to fill each water trough at the flick of a button. The water can also be diverted to a 25m hose reel, which is used for troughs a distance from the fence line or water tanks in the weaner pig accommodation.
He reckons the bowser saves about four or five man hours a day, not to mention improving morale significantly.
