Work Made Easier
Mike Tierney uses the Toolcat 5600 for a variety of chores around his alpaca farm.
At the Maple Brook Farm in Westfield, Mass., owner Mike Tierney is raising an ancient breed of animals with the help of a modern, one-of-a-kind utility work machine.
Tierney and his family have a herd of 150 alpacas. The 36-in.-tall and 150 lb. gentle animals not only make practical pets, but they also produce one of the world’s finest natural fibers that is as soft as cashmere and warmer, lighter, and stronger than wool.
Once Tierney started the first alpaca operation in Massachusetts in the early 1990s, he discovered that maintaining the 40-acre farm required a great deal of work. In the past, he just picked up the phone and hired people to do the daily tasks around the farm.
Then he was introduced to the Toolcat™ 5600 utility work machine. Now, instead of hiring six people to unload bales of hay, pick up manure, or move pen panels, Tierney’s team does it with the help of this worksaving
Bobcat® machine.
“Within 20 minutes of first operating it, I knew we were going to buy one,” he says. “I’ve never driven any type of machinery before, but I was able to get in this, go under a round bale of hay, pick it up and move it down to one of the barns. It was unbelievable. I moved 11 bales and put them just where I wanted. And that was it, I was sold.”
Since purchasing the Toolcat 5600, the way Tierney and his workers approach tasks around the farm has changed. With the machine, they are able to get more done faster and with much less effort.
Tierney equipped his 5600 with an enclosed cab, air conditioning, heat and radio. “We have great help, and I want to give them nice equipment to work with,” he says. “They really like the climate-controlled cab. When you use the 5600 in subzero weather and get inside the heated cab, it’s just amazing.”
So is the amount of work he and his crew can accomplish. With the pallet fork attachment it only takes one person instead of six to unload and stack the 500-lb. bales of hay. And instead of moving eight to 10 bales of hay for the alpacas to feed on every day, they use the utility work machine to stack the large bales into hay bunks.
Picking up manure also takes less time. They are able to lower the bucket onto the ground and just rake in the manure. “The beauty of the 5600 is that we can go from location to location with straw in the cargo box,” Tierney says. “We remove the manure with the bucket, and then have the clean straw on the vehicle at the same time to put in the pens for bedding. Before we had to make several trips.”
The attachment versatility of the Toolcat unit has Tierney finding even
more jobs for it to tackle, including moving pen panels. The panels typically are changed seasonally and special pens are created for breeding. “Moving these 10-ft. panels around used to be a task,” he says. “I would have to get a truck, pick them up, put them in the truck and drag them out. It was a lot of work. Now with the pallet fork on the 5600, we can go up to the panels, slide them onto the forks and just move them anywhere we want.
Tierney says he is more than comfortable traveling across his farm in the utility work machine because it combines all-wheel steer and fourwheel
drive, which enables it to go through tough ground conditions while still being sensitive to the lawn. “We have a pretty nice place, and what I liked about the Toolcat 5600 is that the tires oscillate,” he says. “We don’t tear up the grass.”
There isn’t a day that goes by that the 5600 doesn’t get used, and Tierney doesn’t see that changing anytime soon. He estimates that since purchasing the utility work machine, his crew has been able to cut the time it takes them to complete tasks by 40 percent.
“We’re able to accomplish more and keep the farm cleaner,” he says. “I expect this thing to keep going for a long time.”