Farmhand became the exclusive Irish importer for Quicke way back in 1962, and this made Ireland the first country outside of Scandinavia to import these breakthrough Swedish tractor-mounted loaders.

Farmhand has gone on to sell an estimated 35,000 Quicke loaders on the island of Ireland to date, with many of these passing through family farms from generation to generation.

The modern loader pioneers

Quicke was the first company to produce a quick coupling loader that could be easily removed from the tractor when not in use. Like many farm machinery companies, it started out of necessity.

Karl-Rangar Astrom was a farmer in Sweden and did all his loading and unloading manually. He developed the first Quicke in 1947 for his own use. After he saw that all his neighbours wanted one too, he realised he might have a business.

Quicke has developed a strong following over the years, with Martin Toohey from Tipperary being no exception to this.

“We’ve had Quicke loaders for the last 21 years here; we’ve had seven in all,” said Martin.

Farmhand’s Stephen Scrivener says this is very typical of Quicke users. He commented that they tend to be loyal to the brand and appreciate the quality of the product along with some of the features they have over other makes of loader.

Continuous improvements

Quicke is not a brand known for standing still and is constantly improving its loader offering.

“The quick hitch on the front has improved immensely over the years,” commented Martin.

The SoftDrive on the road seems to be getting better and better and, as well as that, the visibility is way superior to anything else out there.

“The visibility on this new loader is very good,” said Martin, when talking about his new Q-series loader. This product progression can also be seen in how features are laid out.

“I remember in the old loaders you had to go to the front of the loader to turn it [SoftDrive] on and off,” recalled Martin.

Quicke has long since moved this on/off switch to the back of the joystick on the control.

Handy features

“We find the Multidoc very handy for attaching and un-attaching the loader; you can attach the loader when there is pressure on the pipes,” commented Martin.

“There’s no getting up and down off the cab trying to release pressure,” Martin said, speaking about the Quicke Multidoc hose quick release system.

The proof of a good machine or tractor is when drivers are given a choice which one is taken first in the morning.

“We have other loaders here in the yard but we find that if the Quicke loader is in the yard, the drivers prefer to get up on that tractor,” commented Martin.

“I like it, the drivers like it and I have no doubt in the future that when we’re changing the tractor, that we will be spec’ing it with a Quicke loader,” finished Martin.

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