Eamon Mansworth is a mixed farmer and contractor based in Co Laois. In recent times he has been a Massey stalwart after having issues with the infamous porous blocks produced by Henry Ford in the 1980s. Eamon’s local dealer is E.V Condell in Portlaoise. Eamon tries to change his tractor regularly so when the new 5700 series appeared on the market he decided to upgrade a 2008 5455 with 5,000 hours on the clock. After a prolonged negotiation, a shiny new 5713 SL with matching Quicke Q4M loader was purchased just in time for the silage season. Eamon runs a Welger round baler and a McHale 991 wrapper. He puts about 10,000 bales through the baler each season and wraps 13,000 bales with the McHale. For its first season the 5713 was on bale moving duty with the Quicke loader and a set of soft hands bale grab.

Once the silage was done and dusted the grain harvest began and the new Massey was on straw loading and stacking duties. The Massey has been busy since its arrival, clocking up 132 hours of pure loader work, along with the rest of his fleet, a 2008 Massey 5465 doing the baler work and a 4355 Massey two wheel drive on the wrapper.

Eamon has found the tractor to be a massive step forward from what it replaced. The Dyna 4 gearbox fitted on the machine allows for seamless movement between the four gears in each range. Eamon specified that these could be operated from the loader joystick, meaning that this tractor is a pleasure to use as a loader machine.

The very latest loader from Quicke was specified with cable controls and none of the amazing technology such as weighing that can be ordered on these new loaders from the Swedish loader giant. This was in order to keep things as simple as possible.

The only upgrades that Eamon specified for this tractor were larger tyres, upgrading to 540/70/38s on the back for better flotation in a wet season and cab suspension for a bit of comfort. When I visited the farm Eamon had a Rossmore feeding bucket on the tractor, which he was using to feed a barley mix to the 60 cattle that he had housed for the winter. Eamon is also a member of the local fire brigade and is on call 24/7 so having newish reliable equipment is essential for him to get through the work.

The 5713 sl is the biggest of the new global series producing 130hp from the four-cylinder turbo. Eamon says that it’s all the tractor that he will ever need and has more power than he probably needs but it’s nice to have it. Eamon finds the 5713 very manoeuvrable for a tractor with serious horsepower and so far, in the hours he has covered, he has found no issues with the tractor or the new generation Quicke loader. This is a serious tractor and loader combination with lots of power but it comes with a price tag to match and you need to be getting though the work for it to make sense.