Publication Date: Aug 8, 2011
This issue of Practical Farm Ideas has 45 individual farming ideas which have proved valuable to the farmers who devised them
Here are a selection from Vol 20 Issue 2, Summer 2011
Simple mobile drill press for in-situ girders etc
Some of the best ideas are small gizmos which take just a few minutes to make. When Tony Carroll was building a new grain store he had to drill thousands of holes through the profile sheet and the supporting angle and girders with a hand held drill.
The first bay took almost a week- doing holes close to the floor was particularly difficult. To make the job easier, or even possible, he came up with a frame which held the drill. It has an arm going to the other side of the work, and a handle to push the drill. The frame was made in an hour, and it speeded the job so much he was drilling holes as quickly as the two mates were fitting and tightening the nuts and bolts. A universal, portable drill press was born!
Stock-proof cattle handling
Another contributor to this issue was building a cattle raceway with a weigh crush, and wanted the holding area completely jump-proof for big Limos. He found some useful heavy gates and bought half as many again as were needed, cutting the extra ones in half and welding them on top of the others. These 150% high gates are proof against all jumpers, better than anything you've seen, and affordable.
Loading seed drill with auger
The Rushtons use a neat system to fill their seed drill, fert spreader and potato harvester. Instead of loading from bags, they auger seed and fert into the machines using a machine hydraulically driven from the tractor, and filled from a tipping trailer. It's more flexible than the Ritchie seed trailer, as they use any trailer. The auger is on towable frame and is driven by hydraulics from the drill tractor. It's faster than filling from bags on a trailer with a HIAB crane, and, being loose, it also means that part bags are no problem. Many farmers still have a handler or loader standing in the field all day - okay if it has nothing better to do. The method was so successful they made a similar elevator to fill their planter. There's a turn-round time of less than 3 minutes.
Making best use of the farm accountant
Financial planning is increasingly important in farming. Profitability has risen sharply on many farms, and assets are increasingly valuable as well. Yet many farmers still get a basic service from their accountant, doing the books but not seeking much advice. Planning, in their eyes, is all to do with inheritance, nothing more.
Delegates at the annual conference of the Farm and Rural Group of the Chartered Accountants were given a real expose of what can be done to legitimately reduce the tax you pay - and we were there to find out and report.
General:
Tractor window guard eliminates breakage
sprung drawbar design
pick-up truck bed extension
log-splitter works four ways /
Arable:
Low cost, fast method of filling seed drill, fert spreaders and potato planters
Effective bird scarers
Kverneland CLC cultivator "transformed" by packer
Low cost 6m seed drill
Furrow splitter fitted to Dowdeswell
Ram adjuster for folding roller
OSR deflector on combine header
Irrigated wheat looks like yielding an extra tonne - for a cost of £6.50/ac
Simba tine protector to reduce breakage
refurbing combine fingers
weeder for organic potatoes
Livestock:
easy way to make raceway sides too high to jump
mobile feed mill loads Keenan, trailer, bag or box
gate latch made cattle proof
College student re-designs Teagle straw chopper
linkbox adapted to feed square bales into outdoor ring feeders /
Workshop: Mobile tool rack / power drill press for tough holes in girders /
Financial:
Partnership or Ltd?
Coping with capital allowance reduction
Employing your heirs or making them directors or partners
vehicle tax problems compound costs
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Practical Farm Ideas is an ALL EDITORIAL magazine.
