Agriculture has a great need for efficient handling practices. Here are just a few ways that equipment handling products can go to work on your farm.
Dock Boards: Dock boards are perfect ways to move things between two high areas. Whether it’s between two farm trailers, or to be able to cross a deep spot in a road or path with a quad or tractor, having a dock board available to use can be very useful.
Fork Extensions: Many farms have forklifts. These small vehicles are worth their weight in gold. Useful for a myriad of applications, fork extensions can be used to move pallets of any size, along with round hay bales, hay bale stacks, or other material bales. If you utilize sacks to move your agricultural products, fork extensions can be used to easily load, move, and organize these sacks. Fork extensions can also be used to move corral panels or other livestock handling equipment from one work area to the next.
Guard Rails: Whether your agricultural venture is large or small, being able to cordon off dangerous areas is important-even when protecting your animals. Available in varying heights, these guard rails can ensure that you keep animals and people away from dangerous areas. If necessary, you could even use these guard rails to move livestock or keep hay bales from toppling over.
Jib Boom: Many farms have antiquated, out of date equipment lying around. The majority of this equipment will be broken. Having a jib boom available will allow you to rescue this potentially dangerous equipment out of tight spaces. Simply attach the jib boom to the forklift, and you can easily lift loads from 500lbs to 6000lbs. There are also custom pocket sizes available. A jib boom may also be used to easily and safely lift injured animals-such as a foundered horse- and hold them, upright, in a safe place until help arrives.
Load Backrest: Made of carbon steel, these backrests can help keep your loads safe moving from place to place. Whether it’s moving wood, rocks, or hay bales, backrests can keep heavy loads exactly where they need to be.
Order Picker Platform: Whether it’s moving feed, finished products, or small pieces of equipment, an order picker platform is a must have. If you have employees, they can also stand on the platform to ensure that the load gets offloaded safely and correctly. These platforms can also be built with handrails to ensure the safety of any employees. Using an order picker platform would be a perfect way to lift hay up into a hay loft.
Trailer Spotters: Trailer spotters easily attach to a forklift to enable the user to easily move trailers around without hooking them to a truck. Since trucks are usually in use on a farm, being able to use a forklift to move a trailer not only frees up your truck, but ensures that your trailers end up where you need them-when you need them.
Mobile Yard Ramp: Ramps can be a challenge for many agricultural operations. Having a stationary, permanent ramp may work for one season, but may be completely unusable the next due to changing landscapes or farm layout. A mobile yard ramp is the perfect solution. This ramp has a 6’ level off, with many different lengths available. One easy application for this item is cattle loading. Simply set up cattle rails along each side and easily load your cattle on higher platforms, or offload them. Another use for this product would be to easily load your agricultural products onto trucks or trailers. These ramps can hold from 16,000 to 40,000lbs, so your load will be stable at all times. Mobile yard ramps may come standard with all-weather serrated grating. The 2 speed manual crank system and 4 iron core poly wheels make adjusting and moving the ramp a breeze. The 2 speed manual crank system also eliminates the worry of hydraulic failure that other brands use. Each ramp also comes standard with safety chains and a tow boot for easy one man operation.
Expand your horizons when it comes to your forklift-with equipment handling attachments your forklift can do more work for you than ever before.
About the Author : Megan Wilson is a freelance writer, blogger, and photographer from the Bay Area. She now resides on a 225 acre farm in central Kentucky. You can find her blog at www.cattleandcupcakes.com, as well as on Twitter @cattlecupcakes.
In industry the most common attachment for a tele-handler is pallet forks and the most common application is to move loads to and from places unreachable for a conventional forklift. For example, telehandlers have the ability to remove palletised cargo from within a trailer and to place loads on rooftops and other high places. The latter application would otherwise require a crane, which is not always practical or time-efficient.