UNROLLA LX105 delivers time and cost savings for South Australian producer

Ardrossan producer Ashley Rowe was so convinced of the benefits to be gained from the Hustler UNROLLA LX105 (formerly the SL360X), he bought two of them. With two properties 35km apart, having a unit on each block has given the Rowe family tremendous flexibility in their feeding arrangements.

Ashley Rowe is a fourth-generation beef and cattle producer farming 2800 acres at Ardrossan and Arthurton on South Australia’s picturesque Yorke Peninsula. With his father, he grows wheat, barley and canola, and runs 70 breeding Shorthorn cows and 700 breeding Doehne-Merino cross ewes.

Prior to purchasing his Hustler machines, Ashley used a self-feeder filled with full rolls of hay. However he found that the cattle were stamping the ground up in wet weather, and young calves would get injured trying to access the feed. Similarly, the sheep would suffer grass scratches and dust in their eyes trying to access a small area where feed was available, which led to blindness and stock losses.

 Ashley was at a bull sale when he saw a mate’s trailed Hustler in action.

 “I asked a few questions of him and he was really happy with the machine,” he says. “That prompted me to do a bit more research.”

Ashley’s information gathering convinced him that the Unrolla LX105 was the way to go. But buying the one unit was going to mean a lot of time on the road moving it between their two properties as it was needed.

 “Because we farm two properties 35kms apart, we didn’t want to be travelling between properties shifting machinery. We decided to bite the bullet and buy two Unrolla LX105 3-point linkage machines; one for each property.”

Ashley hasn’t looked back.

“Having these machines has enabled us to feed out more efficiently and save on feeding costs”, he says. Before, with feeding out full rolls of hay, Ashley had to push them out by hand and some of it would be wasted.

But now if they’ve got two smaller mobs, they can feed half a bale out and the remainder stays in the cradle while moving onto the next mob. Ashley can now feed them every two days or even every day. “They’ll clean up everything and there’s virtually no wastage.”

By having a machine on each block, Ashley and his father are able to feed the stock at their leisure, rather than being locked in to a strict feeding regime.

Ashley also appreciates the Unrolla LX105’s low maintenance requirements and ease of loading.

 “There’s only four grease points on each machine, and they don’t have to be greased very often so it’s very, very easy to use. There are no adjustments. They’re built really solidly and I haven’t been able to fault the machine.”

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