According to Blaney, its Bale Shredder has been designed to save time and money when feeding and bedding livestock – typically labour-intensive jobs.

The company says that the machine’s large-diameter rotor enables faster bale throughput. The unit can apparently shred a bale (for feeding or bedding) in as little as two-and-a-half minutes. This, claims Blaney, makes it the “fastest round bale shredder available”.

‘5 times faster’

In fact, says the manufacturer, the Bale Shredder can chop bales up to five times faster than a diet feeder. This has reportedly been achieved by maximising material flow within the drum and rotor, through computer-aided simulation and on-farm testing.

The Bale Shredder has been developed specifically to shred silage bales, which are obviously more difficult to work with than straw bales – given their weight, density, moisture content and often uneven shape.

Blaney says that the machines are multi-purpose units – with more capabilities for feeding livestock, not only along passageways but also over a fence or into a feed trailer or trough (for those out-wintering stock).

Cubicle Bedder

Meanwhile, Blaney’s Cubicle Bedder has been developed to spread an “even layer of bedding in a cubicle house”.

It can apparently handle sawdust, wood shavings and sand or chopped straw. The machine is described as a self-loading, hydraulically-driven unit that couples conveniently to any standard tractor’s front or rear three-point linkage or to a telescopic loader.

With a reversible-drive on the discharge conveyor, both sides can be covered without having to turn the tractor. The bedder can be tipped on a rotating linkage to load from a pile of bedding and then brought back to the upright position – ready to spread.

Blaney claims that the Cubicle Bedder can reduce bedding material usage by as much as 50% compared to manual bedding, by more evenly distributing the material where it’s needed.

In fact, says the manufacturer, it can cover 300 cubicles in just 15 minutes.