A fleet of Bobcat telehandlers is ensuring a Queensland poultry company can get the job done every single time
There can be no greater endorsement of a machinery manufacturer than a real-world user staking his job on being able to use that brand exclusively.
For Woodlands Enterprises clean out manager Mick O’Keeffe, the fleet of Bobcat TL30.60 telehandlers which he oversees has proven such a winner that he simply would not consider doing the job without them.
“Put it this way – if the big boss said to me tomorrow ‘that’s it, we’re not buying any more Bobcats, we’re going to another brand’, I’d say ‘well I’m not the manager any more’,” O’Keeffe says.
“I wouldn’t do it and I can’t do it. It’s impossible. I mean every word of it.”
It is a huge call to make, but one which is based on several years of experience using Bobcat telehandlers, along with having previously test driven other brands for comparison.
Woodlands Enterprises is a major poultry producer based at Beerwah on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Daily life is a constant cycle of turning over chicken sheds for their next use, with O’Keeffe in charge of making sure the sheds are cleaned properly and sanitised, ready for the next lot of baby chickens to go in.
“We turn over probably 170 chicken sheds every couple of months with broilers, then we’ve also got our breeders and our layers as well,” he says.
“I’ll push out 15,000 cubic metres of manure every month – it’s a non-stop event, and I’ve got two full time crews running.”
These crews are operating a fleet of six Bobcat TL30.60 telehandlers, the first of which was purchased about five or six years ago, and which have excelled despite the constant work in tough conditions they are subjected to.
Given this, it is little surprise what O’Keeffe cites as the most important feature.
“Comfort is one of the big things, but I think the biggest thing I praise them for is the reliability. That’s a big factor for us,” he says.
“If I have a machine down for two or three days, that’s a big no-no because we are on a time schedule.
“I’ll get to a farm and it might have 10 sheds. I get a placement date saying the chickens are coming on the following Wednesday, so I’ve got until that Wednesday to get everything cleaned.
“We just can’t afford breakdowns because we’ve got chickens coming and we can’t stop that.”
The trusted telehandler for Woodlands – the Bobcat R-Series TL30.60 – offers a 3,000kg rated lift capacity, 5.8m lift height and 3.1m maximum reach.
Powered by a 100 horsepower (74kW) engine, it offers 90L/minute of auxiliary standard flow, while the unit itself weighs in at 5,300kg and measures 4.5m long, 2.1m wide and 2.14m high.
Like many machines, it has had subtle upgrades with each new year to add extra convenient features – many of which are making a difference for the Woodlands team.
Bobcat introduced the R-Series in 2021, with standout features including a five-inch LCD display, all-in-one joystick with improved ergonomics, plus intuitive automotive-style controls.
Another upgrade cited by the manufacturer when the R-Series was launched was a new engine hood with steeper profile, which along with the new dashboard design reduced blind spots and increased overall visibility.
O’Keeffe says this increased visibility has made a difference for Woodlands, also mentioning a change to the positioning of the windscreen wipers, which has removed a small gap in its coverage.
Two other changes also show Bobcat’s desire to innovate and meet real-world customer needs, O’Keeffe believes.
The first of these is reducing the time before the reverse fan kicks in from 30 minutes to 15.
“This is handy if you’re really in a dusty environment that it can come on,” he says.
“I’ve never had an issue with overheating, but they can obviously because they’re in a dusty shed.
“If the radiator is getting clogged up, you’ve got to hit that reverse fan so you clear everything and the machine can breathe, so that was a good thing that they changed that to 15 minutes.
“There’s also an override button, for instance, which they’ve moved and is a lot easier to get at if you do need it, which we very rarely do.
“Bobcat have certainly been thinking about them, put it that way. They are a good machine.”
Using telehandlers in the poultry industry creates a different set of circumstances and challenges compared to more ‘standard’ uses, such as broadacre farming, he says.
The first of these comes via the additional dust created in chicken sheds, which O’Keeffe mentioned in the context of its reverse fan, but he also praises the Bobcat’s reliability in terms of its air-conditioning in this environment.
“A chicken shed will be very dusty once the brooms start working, but the aircon just holds up,” he says.
“We do change the filters every 500 hours, but it holds up and it keeps cold.
“With every other brand I’ve tried, you get to 500 hours and the aircon is no good so you’ve got it in the workshop for three days trying to fix it, because you can’t have no aircon in a chicken shed.”
Telehandlers, by definition, are designed to reach heights which other machines cannot – however their use in a poultry setting means they must do so while being low-profile and nimble enough to work comfortably in tight spaces and under a chicken shed roof.
Once again, Bobcat passes this test with flying colours for O’Keeffe and the Woodlands team, thanks in part to the flexibility of using different sized wheels for specific needs in their fleet.
“I’ve got a couple with 20-inch wheels on, which I use for the broiler farms, and we’ve put 17-inch wheels on the other ones, which we can get under nesting boxes and all that sort of thing,” O’Keeffe says.
“They’re not too high and they fit in the shed perfectly, and also you need something that’s going to also reach into a truck.
“My main truck we use is 4.2m high, so you’ve got to get that telescopic boom up over top of it as well and they fit that bill perfectly.”
Bobcat telehandlers are distributed nationally by Bobcat Australia, which is a division of Clark Equipment.
O’Keeffe’s nearest branch is Clark Equipment Sunshine Coast, based at Kunda Park.
He is full of praise for the entire team’s service, particularly the branch’s service coordinator.
“I can ring Amanda up and she’ll juggle things – she will either be there that afternoon or the next morning first up,” he says.
“I can’t fault them.”
The full Bobcat range can be viewed at www.bobcatofaustralia.com.au