For many farmers, the concept of mechanical feeding of cattle is a relatively new one. Here in the Irish Farmers Journal, we have been writing about diet-feeding systems for more than 40 years and, in some senses, very little has changed.

Back in the early 1980s, the silage grab arrived on Irish farms. There was ongoing debate as to whether the silage grab or the silage block cutter made the most sense.

Block cutters were for bigger tractors and bigger farms. They could not be justified by the many thousands of new entrants into silage making.

In 1985, the Abbey entry level silage block cutter, which was just patented, was priced at £2,706 incl. VAT.

Many of these smaller farmers were struggling with manual feeding single-chop silage from small pits. The arrival of the silage grab offered an affordable choice, but could the tractors manage them?

This was an era when the Massey Ferguson 290 was considered to be a big tractor. At the Irish Farmers Journal we set about showing farmers what size tractors were needed to operate a loader with a grab.

Attractive option

For many smaller farmers, the rear grab was an attractive option in terms of the price. The fact that it suited many smaller tractors such as the then popular Massey Ferguson 135 was a huge bonus.

In November 1983, the Irish Farmers Journal staged two machinery demonstration events in association with ACOT, the Teagasc predecessor, for the grab and block cutters – one at Athenry Agricultural College, Galway, and the other at Ballyhaise Agricultural College, Cavan. The aim was to show how well these machines could take the drudgery out of forking out and feeding long single-chop silage.

This was the first diet feeder on the Irish market, built in the US for feedlots by Farmhand Ltd, which was an American company. Back then it could be supplied with electronic feed scales for a list price of £11,600 plus VAT.

We demonstrated four block cutters, the Taskers, Parmiter, Vicon and Abbey unit. Others, including Irish Agricultural Machinery (IAM), did not participate with the Strautmann Hydrofox, nor did Agricultural Distributors Ltd with the Pelco, nor Paddy Morrissey from Cloghan, Co Offaly, with the Chillington block cutter.

We had three rear end grabs in action – Major, McKenna and Swan, the latter manufactured by Brody Engineering of Athenry, Galway. The rear-end grabs were supported by front-end loader grabs from Quicke and Tanco.

Diet feeders were rare at the time. Kidd was the market leader, manufacturing a machine called a forage feeder or forage box.

This was a designed around the muck spreader system with silage, straw and meals evenly loaded and fed to a rotary mixer mounted to the front of the machine.

The Kidd Feeder heads the queue in the Ballyhaise Silage feeding demonstration of 1988. The machine claimed a power requirement of 12hp at the PTO.

JF Farm Machines also supplied a similar machine, as did D & E McHugh of Longford with the SR forage box. The French-made Lucas feeder imported by the Lynch Bros of Agro Marketing was also on the market, as was a unit imported by Philip Greene Farm Machinery in Ratoath.

Diet feeders were for the big operators and not so popular west of the Shannon or in Cavan, so five years later we staged a new event at Mountbellew Agricultural College and Kildalton College. This time the emphasis changed to the new-generation shear grabs and we included diet feeders.

Parmiter had patented the shear grab design and soon many others were joining in.

Tractors sizes were growing, much needed with the extra weight of the shear grab and the need for extra hydraulic power.