John Critchlow - 7650 Wrapper
2011 marks a significant milestone for Staffordshire contractor and dairy farmer John Critchlow. It will be his 25th year of wrapping round bales, in which time he will have wrapped 250,000 of them – all using Kverneland wrappers. His current wrapper, a three-year old 7650 model, joins a seven-year old T8 model that is kept as a spare machine, allowing him to give the best possible service for customers near his base at Low End Farm, Sheen, Staffordshire. “The T8 wrapper is my absolute favourite machine to use,” says an enthusiastic Mr Critchlow. “There’s something about the way it operates, which keeps you involved in the job you do.” But for output, it cannot match his Kverneland-Taarup 7650 model. “The 7650 can wrap 100 bales/hour on nice flat ground, but I have a lot of slopes to deal with in the Peak District, so I choose to use semi-automatic control and the joystick, so I can tip the bales off the table in safe locations,” he says. “So output drops a little, to 90 bales/hour.” With hydraulic drawbar and a hydraulic loading arm, the 7650 can be manoeuvred into tight spots to ensure every bale makes it onto the wrapping table.
“There are times when the balers’ drop out a bale that rolls slowly to the headland, into a corner or against a wall,” he explains. “And I can use the wrapper’s functions to make sure I can pick them all up. The joystick makes my day in the cab very enjoyable, as I can control the wrapper exactly how I want.”
His specialist business as a specialist round bale wrapping contractor sees him follow 12 different balers around Sheen. Most produce 4ft bales, and with the introduction of twin satellite wrappers, he has been able to put four layers of film on 4-500 bales every day without staying out after midnight.
“I don’t start wrapping until lunchtime, as it gives the balers a chance to get ahead,” he says. “Though I don’t leave any unwrapped bales for the next day – everything that is baled for me gets wrapped before I go to bed. And the most I’ve wrapped in a very long day is 1100 bales.”
The key to bale wrapping success, he says, is a two-pronged attack.
“You need a damn good wrapper that offers a good output and the ability to produce excellent results,” he says. “But you also need to use good quality film.”
As a result, Mr Critchlow buys and supplies all the film for his wrapping service, choosing RaniWrap, which has resulted in customers enjoying the best quality forage with virtually no losses.
“If I’m doing the wrapping, I want a system that is completely trouble-free,” he says. “I have a lot of pride in the service I give to my customers – I use the best equipment, with the best back-up, to give them the best job possible and is why I’ve trusted Kverneland wrappers for the last 25 years.”
(May 2011)
Kverneland-Taarup 7650 has wrapped about 30,000 bales, without fail.