sheargrabs

keep going

Thinking but still afraid of buying a sheargrab for the front loader because so many people get fed up with them.what size do ye have on what and what makes didnt do well for ye

Timmaay

Only reason you'll get fedup with it is if the tractors pump isn't strong enough to shear the silage correctly. Other than that, keep it relatively sharp (quick run with a proper sharping angle grinder disk once a month), and it shouldn't give any bother at all. Wouldn't ever go back to a normal silage fork here, way cleaner silage pit face, with much less pulling of silage etc. Actually the one other thing, fair bit of weight in them, so if your tractor back end is light you might need weights, especially if the sheargrab will be used to feed silage bales also.

In terms of what we have, I think ours is 4ft wide, we do have a 100hp tractor to drive it. Its our 2nd one now, 1st one lasted about 5yrs, before the rams started pitting badly, so we traded it in.

F.D

Got our first one a few winters ago, best money ever spent no silage falling all over the place anymore, we got a conor one secondhand seems strong enough, cuts evenly and holds its edge well. in a few years i would love one of the tanco Bale shear and shear grab combined seen it at the ploughing this year, would be handy as we do have wraps as well

vanderbadger

F.D wrote: »

Got our first one a few winters ago, best money ever spent no silage falling all over the place anymore, we got a conor one secondhand seems strong enough, cuts evenly and holds its edge well. in a few years i would love one of the tanco Bale shear and shear grab combined seen it at the ploughing this year, would be handy as we do have wraps as well

the boys on forumfor farming were saying it a balls of a job, very slow opening and closing i think they said

f140

have a two year old McHale 5ft here. its on a terex 860 digger. im very happy with it. the biggest problem is bending the pongs. I bent one so far in this one.

Milked out

7ft one hear on an old 412, have it 9 years I think, will have to get a new one alright but a super job to keep pit face clean. Just be careful feeding out if you don't have diet feeder as the cows swinging their heads can easily hit their head off the blade. Feeding passage is only 11 ft wide here so can be a tad awkward. Don't go pushing in silage with it either or if you're in a rush at least have a grab of silage in it and open the blade enough to keep it off the ground but not enough to have it at an angle the cows could hit it

moy83

We have 5ft one here for years on a small 2wd international loader , we have a weight on the back thats about 1/2 tonne and its done the trick mighty .
Do ye cut the blocks down under each other or across in a row ?

Milked out

moy83 wrote: »

We have 5ft one here for years on a small 2wd international loader , we have a weight on the back thats about 1/2 tonne and its done the trick mighty .
Do ye cut the blocks down under each other or across in a row ?

under each other, depending on how fast you're feeding out it allows you to keep the top of the silage drier with polythene

moy83

Milked out wrote: »

under each other, depending on how fast you're feeding out it allows you to keep the top of the silage drier with polythene

I have seen a good few going that way alright even though the father goes across so I just follow suit .We would be folling back the plastic about once a week so I dont think the rain would bother it much

Muckit

I go across the top first as always think the top goes off quicker once bench opened. After that it doesn't really matter. They say you should cut out every second block to keep the pressure even on both rams but rarely do it in practice. I use a mop/flap disc to keep blade razor sharp.

Like others said be careful moving near barrier as it's easy give a gash to an animal s head.

We've a mchale on rear mast. Good machine. Visibility would be my small pet peeve. But excellent strong well built machine that can be worked on a 65hp tractor no bother once weighted.

Had a mckenna rear shear grab before that. Another good machine.

My one piece of advice would be to bite the bullet and buy right-buy once- buy new

F.D

vanderbadger wrote: »

the boys on forumfor farming were saying it a balls of a job, very slow opening and closing i think they said

Good to know how it works in practice alright, from looking at it i though it was a good concept though

keep going

Its wagon silage we have if it was precision chop it would be different but thats whats pushing me towards thesheargrab as it would be alot tidier.what about johnstons the price isvery rigght

1chippy

Johnston are pure scrap. had one here and sold it for 350 this year. you will spend the whole time repairing it. nugent have a weak rail where the prongs go into the bushions. ive seen them burst on their first season. nc are supposed to be good. i had a wylie on e for a good few years and they are a good machine. mckenna are pretty decent too, thats what i currently have. i only picked it up a couple of months ago so wont be able to tell you what its like for another while, but any reports on them seem good.

munkus

Have a 3'6 O'Connor. Was originally on back mast but had it converted to front loader when we changed the tractor. No comparison when it's on the front loader, so easy to drop blocks into feader if some outside.

Important that as soon as one prong is loose or broken that you tighten/replace it straight away. Massive pressure applied to the on the rest if one goes.

loveta

1chippy wrote: »

Johnston are pure scrap. had one here and sold it for 350 this year. you will spend the whole time repairing it. nugent have a weak rail where the prongs go into the bushions. ive seen them burst on their first season. nc are supposed to be good. i had a wylie on e for a good few years and they are a good machine. mckenna are pretty decent too, thats what i currently have. i only picked it up a couple of months ago so wont be able to tell you what its like for another while, but any reports on them seem good.

Was going to praise johnston grab every other fella round me has one the 5'6" one on tele handlers and they have done "serious" work with them and they cut really clean have a mc hale my self was not worth the extra money IMO

Zr105

There's a Johnston here since 95 its a 5foot2 on a 50hx digger, it's the deeper version to suit telescopics etc. only problem we have had is the top bar cracked but that was after about 14 years of always cutting half blocks on one side. and it did also get the rams re pistoned but that was due to damage an pitting, but it wasn't to big money wise compared to changing a clean grab. A tine came loose last year but hardly surprising at this stage its cut a fair bit.

As has been said keep it sharp, keep it closed near animals and when not used, and always try to cut a full block, oh and if u store it on a pallet when not on tractor it keeps the edge much much better

Dont be daft

Quick question to all ye with sheargrabs. Is there anyone shearing straight into a diet feeder?
Or do you just cut the blocks and load into the feeder with a bucket?
Was looking at the blocks of precision cut silage and would be worried about firing them into a feeder.

Zr105

Dont be daft wrote: »

Quick question to all ye with sheargrabs. Is there anyone shearing straight into a diet feeder?
Or do you just cut the blocks and load into the feeder with a bucket?
Was looking at the blocks of precision cut silage and would be worried about firing them into a feeder.

We chop them straight into feeder, big bar across top of abbey tends to break them, the digger can only dump out the fork a little over feeder so half the block falls off then you have to shake in the rest so it's never gettin a full big slab. No problems yet and for the last 2 seasons ours was wafer thin and for the end of last season there was a slight gap were the 2 bands meet and you could see the sides of the feeder flexing as the paddles passed it.....

Dont be daft

Zr105 wrote: »

We chop them straight into feeder, big bar across top of abbey tends to break them, the digger can only dump out the fork a little over feeder so half the block falls off then you have to shake in the rest so it's never gettin a full big slab. No problems yet and for the last 2 seasons ours was wafer thin and for the end of last season there was a slight gap were the 2 bands meet and you could see the sides of the feeder flexing as the paddles passed it.....

I presume the Abbey is a tub. We've a Keenan here so I wonder would that make a difference.
A bar across the top would be a good idea.

Zr105

No it's an old 100 paddle. To behonest i would think chopping it out on the ground a pain as it means double handling which is slowin things down. We fill meal in with hopper on tractor and shear grab on digger so we never have to handle pipes on normal routine. We could chop out and use bucket on tractor but thats still another change of implement and time waisting. Also it woul defeat the purpose a little as we can chop out exactly wats needed day in day out wereas you'd always be chopping out more to be safe if bucketing in, which would then be going off....

Also i ment to add earlier we chop from top to bottom as it means all fields are mixed evenly as there will always be slight differences in quality, and it takes around a week to clear each pass of pit so chopping across would be leaving it open to a lot of rain. We push back cover as needed

freedominacup

Zr105 wrote: »

No it's an old 100 paddle. To behonest i would think chopping it out on the ground a pain as it means double handling which is slowin things down. We fill meal in with hopper on tractor and shear grab on digger so we never have to handle pipes on normal routine. We could chop out and use bucket on tractor but thats still another change of implement and time waisting. Also it woul defeat the purpose a little as we can chop out exactly wats needed day in day out wereas you'd always be chopping out more to be safe if bucketing in, which would then be going off....

Also i ment to add earlier we chop from top to bottom as it means all fields are mixed evenly as there will always be slight differences in quality, and it takes around a week to clear each pass of pit so chopping across would be leaving it open to a lot of rain. We push back cover as needed

Do 2 blocks at the time and you keep pressure even on grab. They usually recommend go left, go right to keep wear even but every second block keeps it even too.

Zr105

freedominacup wrote: »

Do 2 blocks at the time and you keep pressure even on grab. They usually recommend go left, go right to keep wear even but every second block keeps it even too.

We've no problem keepin the pressure even now, it was before the diet feder we used to chop half width grabs to feed down 1 side of shed

whitebriar

keep going wrote: »

Its wagon silage we have if it was precision chop it would be different but thats whats pushing me towards thesheargrab as it would be alot tidier.what about johnstons the price isvery rigght

Ball park what kind of price Inc vat ?

keep going

1chippy wrote: »

Johnston are pure scrap. had one here and sold it for 350 this year. you will spend the whole time repairing it. nugent have a weak rail where the prongs go into the bushions. ive seen them burst on their first season. nc are supposed to be good. i had a wylie on e for a good few years and they are a good machine. mckenna are pretty decent too, thats what i currently have. i only picked it up a couple of months ago so wont be able to tell you what its like for another while, but any reports on them seem good.

Johnston are 1640 incl vat and brackets landed inthe yard for 4ft6hat was yours

1chippy

i bought one off a lad who was after buying a telehandler and grab. it had a couple of years work but mint. i got it for 650 but it took a lot of searching. 1330 was the best quote i got for a 4'6" johnston. with arthur o neill in culloville. you should be able to get the no. in directory inquiries. i called in direct so have no contact no saved.

bob charles

You lads must love changing on and off pipes and oily hands, Never use anything else other than a ordinary bucket. Tickle it out of the pit and never any problems

moy83

bob charles wrote: »

You lads must love changing on and off pipes and oily hands, Never use anything else other than a ordinary bucket. Tickle it out of the pit and never any problems

You will do alot of tickling with the bucket to get our single chop out of the pit ! I know a lad with percision chop and you could shovel it around though

bob charles

moy83 wrote: »

You will do alot of tickling with the bucket to get our single chop out of the pit ! I know a lad with percision chop and you could shovel it around though

you sure would, doubt there are many pits of single chop about nowadays

jersey101

bob charles wrote: »

You lads must love changing on and off pipes and oily hands, Never use anything else other than a ordinary bucket. Tickle it out of the pit and never any problems

i know of a farm down inwex town that milk 180 cows during the winter and they use a silage fork taking out the silage. They use so much aday that it never goes iff

moy83

bob charles wrote: »

you sure would, doubt there are many pits of single chop about nowadays

T'ill be going out of fashion here too in the next couple of years I'd say . Its getting to be too much time and hassle finding a driver . Its only costing us the diesel at the minute , it will break my heart coming up with the price of even a cheap wagon

Zr105

bob charles wrote: »

You lads must love changing on and off pipes and oily hands, Never use anything else other than a ordinary bucket. Tickle it out of the pit and never any problems

Shear grab pretty much stays on digger all winter unless we are spreading dung or a bit of digging. Tractor is changed from bale fork to hopper to load meal into feeder but that only means pulling out the latch which is hardly taxing and it latches itself so cant say any is a big deal as we normally take off fork anyway