INVENTIVE engineering in agricultural comes to light each year when the Royal Highland Society of Scotland holds its Technical Innovation Awards and this year, two Aberdeenshire brothers took home a silver award for their very own Birnie Bale Safe trailer. This week, the boys also won the Machinery Farm and Technology of the Year award at the British Farming Awards held in Birmingham.
Brothers, Stephen (25) and Iain (23), who hail from Whynieton, near Maud, Aberdeenshire, are both a true example of passionate and determined youngsters in agriculture, as not only do they work full-time jobs when not working on the family farm in the evenings or at weekends, they also run SIB Services, an agricultural business which they established two years ago. They started hiring out a 13-tonne digger either self-drive or with an operator but have since turned the business around with the introduction of their new self-securing trailer which both the boys and their dad, Harry, designed from scratch. They also sell LED lights and make decorative stainless steel light bars from home.
“As youngsters at the Highland Show, the Technical Innovation stand was one that we were always desperate to go visit,” began Stephen, who is an electrical instrumentation engineer with Scottish Water. “Technology and machinery is something we have shown a keen interest in from a young age and we try to do all the mechanical and welding work at home, as well as concreting our own sheds.
“Initially, the trailer was designed for ourselves as we wanted to improve bale transport by hauling straw in a more efficient and safe way. We grow our own arable crops at home for feeding, but we also buy in a lot of straw which means long trips with a tractor and trailer at nights or weekends. It’s a time consuming job when hauling from a distance, especially when you’re trying to get the straps on on a windy day,” added Stephen.
Birnie Bale Safe trailers are fitted with hydraulic gates which squeeze the bales together
With no financial support or government grants, the boys drew up plans of the new trailer and sent them to PF Trailers, a subsidiary of Prefab Engineering based in Northern Ireland, who at the time, were looking for more work to get their name in the market.
“We wanted to design a trailer that would eliminate the time taken to strap bales on to a flat-bed trailer and stop bales moving or falling off,” explained younger brother Iain, who is an agricultural mechanic with Sellars. “Bales are secured by a steel frame on each side which can be raised or lowered into place by hydraulic cylinders on parallel linkage arms at each end of the trailer.”
Compatible with round or square bales and believed to be the only bale trailer on the market that can transport three layers of bales without straps or ropes thanks to the vertical hydraulic side extensions, the trailer can also be used to transport the likes of seed and fertiliser bags. The vertical extension can also be flipped upside down and used to secure lower loads such as potato boxes.
This hydraulically controlled piece of kit means that nobody has to be near the load to secure, and securing the load hydraulically only takes a matter of seconds. Also, when unloading from one side of the trailer, the far side of the trailer can be left in a raised position to prevent loads being accidentally pushed off.
This 33ft Birnie Bale Safe has been bought buy a farmer in Sweden For safety, the hydraulic mechanism is held in place via pilot-operated check valves, which also allows the trailer to be unhitched, even with the hydraulic cylinders pressurised. Each side can be independently controlled, via two, double acting spool valves. A further hydraulic service is required for the vertical extensions, although they come standard tee’d with both sides on one service and both extensions on a second service.
The trailer comes with a working width of 8ft, 4 inches and an overall height of 14.5ft. The weight of a standard Birnie Bale Safe is 19- tonne. They vary in length with the biggest being a 33ft design and the smallest being a 26ft.
“The first trailer manufactured was used at home and hired out and a customer hired it before buying one after finding a new use for it hauling palletised Christmas trees,” said Stephen. “We’ve sold eight in the last two years, with the furthest having gone to a farmer in Sweden. They seem to prefer to have bigger models at 33ft, whereas here, field gates are almost too small for trailers that size.”
Fortunately, the Birnie brothers have had to do little advertising and have relied on the power of social media and YouTube to promote their product.
“We’ve had people from Ohio, France, Iceland and Germany get in touch about the trailer and that’s all through sharing videos and pictures on Facebook or Youtube,” commented Stephen. “People have actually followed us down our farm road when they’ve spotted us out hauling straw with the trailer.”
The biggest issue however, is the time it takes to make the trailers and the cost of shipping them over from Northern Ireland. In a bid to cut costs and speed up the production process, Stephen and Iain have future plans to do all fitting of lights and hydraulics themselves, as well as painting. They also hope to have the trailers shipped as flat pack to reduce costs and so that they’re minimising the risks of trailers being scratched or damaged.
Since using PF Trailers as their manufacturer, the boys have become part-time salesmen for the firm, selling multi-purpose trailers. So far, they’ve managed to sell all types of different trailers in the area.
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