A full day’s work is standard practice for Hamish Gill who is juggling various operations in Western-Central Southland.
The livestock farmer runs a 275Ha lamb finishing operation in Otautau-Eastern Bush, finishing around 10-14,000 lambs a year. Another 150Ha is shut up for silage from which he expects to cut 3000 tonnes of the grass during the season. Silage, together with a good crop of swedes, will supply supplementary feed to local dairy farmers during the winter months.
Prioritising tasks, and reliable time-saving tools help keep the operations ticking along. These are essential, given that Hamish spends five days a week running a rural fence contracting business which he has operated for the last 30 years.
Running his own units, supplying farmers with supplementary feed, and contract fencing requires good balance – not only time but physical demands too. He and his two crew have just finished eight days’ worth of electric fencing around creeks and trees. They have completed up to 10kms of two-wire electric fence in good time. It’s allowed them to quickly move to the next waterways project installing varying lengths of 10-wire netting fence with a ground wire and top electric wire.
“We used a Strainrite adapter on the Stockade ST400i cordless power stapler tool for attaching insulators to the posts – it speeds up an electric fencing job dramatically and clients are always pleased with the speed that the job gets done.”
Hamish came across Stockade tools through an industry training day five years ago and gave the staplers a go. He says he is ‘addicted to them now” and armed with the time-saving tools he hasn’t looked back.
“We bought two ST400i cordless staplers pretty much immediately. We have three now and I wouldn’t be without them. We use them on a daily basis and go through quite a few racks of staples a year. Stapling up netting fence for sheep or deer, it basically speeds up the work– and makes our work so much easier and more pleasant.”
For ease of use, simplicity and just being able to get more done in a day Hamish says you don’t have to be a fencing contractor to reap the benefits of the Stockade ST400i.
“I recommend them for any farmer who just wants to keep their farm maintained. I’ve got clients who have gone out and bought one for their own farm just to do fence maintenance and repairs. You won’t go back to a hammer, and they are pretty quick to pay for themselves.”
For further information, contact your Farmlands Technical Field Officer or the friendly team at your local Farmlands store.
