Feedstuffs fixProducers putting up hay and handling feedstuffs often cite a particular machine as a key to their success.Bob Minner, Fallon, Nevada, depends on quality baling equipment for commercial hay operation. "You have to keep up with changes in the machinery," Minner says. And quality equipment is key to producing dairy-quality fencingtools hay for his customers, he says. Good dairy test hay will bring $110 to $115, and he has received up to $117 a ton for some.Minner shifted from small squares to big square bales eight years ago to meet the demand of local dairy operations. He operates a Hesston 8450 self-propelled windrower and a Hesston 4910 baler to cover about 6,000 acres a season. He double-rakes with a rotary machine for bigger windrows and to better dry the hay. The bales, measuring 8 feet long and weighing 1,750 to 2,300 pounds, are then picked up with a tractor-pulled bale wagon that hauls four bales at a time.

"Purchasing a Bobcat for general farm use has been a lifesaver -- for loading hay, cleaning out fence rows, hauling rocks, etc.," writes Jeff Suess, Henley, Missouri. The Gehl skid steer saves me time, labor, and my back. I use it more than I thought I would," says Bill Haas, Bellevue, Ohio.ATV ready to rodeoATVs are near the top of the list of products rated by fencingtools Stockmen''s Survey[TM] respondents. Well over half of participants fencingtools cite a favorite brand or model. "I''d be lost without my ATVs," says Marty Green of Grand Mound, Iowa (pictured above). He jumps on either his Polaris 300 or 400 4x4 every day April through September to check calves for scours, pinkeye and lameness, to check cows for heat detection, to fix fence, and to move cattle to different paddocks.

Cow comfortCow comfort was the goal when Terry Timmons (pictured below) built a new fencingtools free stall barn on his dairy farm near Loudonville, Ohio. Timmons and his father milk 200 head of registered Holsteins. Larger stalls with more "lunge space" in the front help their cows get up and down easier now, says Timmons. Their old barn, built in the 1970s, had small stalls that were closed in the front. The new stalls were made locally by Stein-Way Equipment in Apple Creek, Ohio. The bedding is sand.The barn was built in August 2001 for $500 a fencingtools stall, including electricity and water. Timmons says the investment has already paid off in better cow health.