Hay Shed
A truck loaded with hay pulls across the weighbridge on an overcast autumn morning at Caldwell in the NSW Riverina.
Colin Fawcett’s sheds all have one thing in common.
Canopies.
When the Nullawil, Victoria broadacre farmer uncovered the benefits of adding extra shelter to the side of a workshop or hay sheds, he never looked back.
“I went to look at some machinery at Berriwillock (in north west Victoria) and they had an Entegra shed with a canopy on it,” Colin said.
“They had their airseeder unfolded under the canopy, working on it, and I thought ‘wow, what a good idea’.”
“The first one I ever built, I put a canopy on it. And after doing that, I thought I’d never build another shed without a canopy.”
Colin was true to his word.
Since building his first Entegra shed – a 48 metre by 30 metre hay shed – four years ago, his workshop and a subsequent larger hay shed have all included canopies.
They also were built with Entegra’s Taperflow ™.patented gutter and drainage system.
The canopies provide extra protection from weather coming in from the east – especially important for the hay stored in the shed – and also provide an opportunity to load trucks out of the weather and at night, thanks to the installation of lights.
Colin said he’d even consider using the canopy for extra hay storage, if required.
The Taperflow ™ gutters safely capture high volumes of rain, ensuring there’s no gutter overflow to run onto the stored hay and no down pipes to worry about at the front.
The two hay sheds mostly protect vetch hay – sold domestically to dairy farmers – but Colin has produced oaten hay for the export market and used the sheds to capitalise on the monthly storage payment for holding the fodder in a shed.
But it’s Colin’s workshop – the second shed built by Entegra during the past four years – that was on his most “needed” piece of on-farm infrastructure.
Taking advantage of the recent government tax incentives, he decided to investigate the best options to maximise the fully enclosed building with an insulated roof, west wall and concrete floor.
Colin made sure the workshop opening was 18 metres wide so he could drive a header inside. There’s also pallet racking along one wall.
But the stand out feature – easily – is the one bay that includes a 12 metre truck drive over pit.
“A fair bit of thought went into it, a fair bit of research on the internet and we also went to Swan Hill and looked at a couple of truck pits,” Colin said.
“Now we’ve had some Entegra customers come and look at it.
“It’s surprising how many times we use it. We are not massively into trucks, but we are always putting a truck over (the pit) to grease it or adjust brakes etc.”
Prior to this workshop and truck pit, Colin said he’d use his brother’s sheds for machinery maintenance and would resort to “crawling around on the concrete floor” to get under trucks. The ease of conducting maintenance in the new workshop ensures more gets done which means less downtime.
Adding infrastructure to his predominantly cropping operation was always part of Colin’s long-term plan for the farm.
He bought the property 25 years ago.
Back then it only had a small number of sheds and they were close together.
The new sheds are not only in a central location, near the weighbridge for hay and grain sales, but they were also built for the future.
“The sheds are 50 metres apart,” he said.
“With machinery getting bigger and trucks getting longer, I put a bit of thought into making sure you can drive trucks around easily and not be cramped for space.”
Colin also had succession and his son Tom’s future in-mind when he planned these infrastructure investments.
“I’d always had the mindset of building sheds and silos. ‘We’d built some silos and sheds were the next part of the program’,” Colin said.
“And with my son Tom going to take over the farm eventually, the more I can do now, the easier it will be for him.
“Plus, things are only getting dearer, we might as well put some money into infrastructure while we can because there are years where you can’t and you can never have enough sheds or silos.”
A truck loaded with hay pulls across the weighbridge on an overcast autumn morning at Caldwell in the NSW Riverina.
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