NSW mixed farmer, James Hockey, and his brother Michael have owned two Merlo Multifarmer telehandlers and now a larger model Turbofarmer telehandler over the past 14 years.
The Hockeys run a 3800-hectare farm at Spring Ridge on the Liverpool Plains where they crop durum wheat, sunflowers and sorghum, and run 350 Angus and Hereford breeders to turn off 400 to 450-kilogram steers for the feedlot market.
James Hockey said the Multifarmer had the necessary PTO and three-point linkage for an auger or field bins, and was ideal for shifting grain, hay and chemicals.
They purchased five different attachments with the machine - standard forks, grain bucket, gravel bucket, hay spears and round bale grabbers.
“If you need to change to another implement - to go from the forks to the buckets - it’s done in 10 or 20 seconds. You just remove one attachment and get onto the next,” he said.
“Our old earthmover took up to 10 minutes to change implements because it was so heavy, difficult to move and the pins were hard to push in.
“The Merlo telehandler is so versatile. It has four-wheel steer, so we can turn around in quite tight sheds when we are shifting grain or hay to load trucks.”
The Hockeys upgraded to the larger Turbofarmer this year because they are considering dryland cotton production in years when the season allows.
“Our Turbofarmer has a 7-tonne lift capacity and a three-section boom with 9-metre reach compared to the 3t lift capacity and 6m reach on our previous Multifarmer, which means we could safely lift cotton bales and meet the Work Health Safety requirements.”
Neil Lyon
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
