Beef Farmer Feeds 1000 Tonnes of Silage & 400 Bales each year with a Super Comby Feedout Wagon

Published 3rd December 2016
New Zealand

Sherenden Station, a Hawkes Bay based beef farm, traded their Silage wagon which was proving a bit unreliable, for a Super Comby feeder wagon some 3 years ago.  We caught up with Michael Groome to see how it was performing… 

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Michael says it hurt a bit when he purchased the Super Comby, but now 3 years down the track he can’t praise it enough, especially the reliability and its ability to easily feed everything without having trouble has been worth far more than the initial investment. One of the worst issues he had with his previous silage wagon were the chains breaking, and it just wasn’t built for the job.

Being able to load up the Super Comby with 6-7 bales of balage or 7 tonnes of Maize Silage saves a lot of time feeding out.
Feedpad kit.jpg Critical to Michael’s operation was the optional feedpad kit that he spec’d his Super Comby with – scroll to watch the video of it in action – which when feeding into troughs, bunks or feedpad applications ensures all the feed ends up in the trough and none on the ground where the cattle are standing. Michael reports that when feeding maize silage, it helped to cut waste by as much as 30% when feeding into the troughs. 

Some 3000 tonnes of silage and 1500 balage bales later he’s found the machine to be an excellent fit for his operation he says “he wouldn’t go bigger, especially in the hilly terrain”. Loading it up with 7 tonnes each load brings the unit weight to just under 10 tonnes in a nice compact and manoeuvrable machine, which is ideal for his 140hp tractor. He’s also found it to be very well finished, very minimal paint wear after this much work, which is a testament to how little the floor needs to move to feed out a load, a key reason behind the reliability of the Comby Feeders.

 

“I’d definitely recommend a Super Comby

if you’re looking to buy a feed wagon”

“We’ve had no issues at all feeding maize grain, palm kernel, maize silage and balage”

 

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Michael found his scales to be very beneficial for both reducing over feeding, feed budgeting and saving costs in his operation, and found that in the wetter months of winter by feeding the maize silage into troughs reduced waste by as much as 30%!  His troughs are towable, so that he can tow them to different fields around the farm with the UTV, and they’ve also been beneficial when feeding maize grain and palm kernel.  Although he found that when feeding balage, the troughs didn’t make much of a difference.

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Take a look at the Super Comby in action, and see why Michael has to say: