Every partnership between a manufacturer and dealer has a story behind it, and the story of Rata Equipment and Lonsdale Merchants has been a winner from day one
Lonsdale Merchants first represented Rata Equipment’s products – specifically its popular Power Claw – at the Wimmera Machinery Field Days in 2023.
Based at Stawell in Victoria’s west, Lonsdale took one Power Claw to show at the event with the Rata team bringing some others, and the first sale took place before gates had even opened.
“I’d actually sent a couple of brochures to existing customers about the Power Claw beforehand,” Lonsdale general manager Michael Henderson says.
“As I was unloading and setting up for that field day, one of them rang up and said, ‘we’ll take one today if you’ve got it there’.
“The interest seems to have grown each year because it’s a very important piece of equipment for farmers that have got it.
“I’ve had a few of them say it’s the most used implement on their farm.”
Suiting everyone
Rata’s Power Claw has become many farmers’ most used implement for good reason.
At its essence, it provides an alternative to four-in-one buckets while having a claw-like nature that allows it to comfortably pick up large items such as logs and fallen trees.
The Power Claw makes light work of otherwise tedious and laborious jobs such as pulling down and cleaning up fence lines, putting fallen timber into stacks, and general clean-up work on overgrown or untidy paddocks.
Its point of difference is the claw, with the interlocking tines made from high-tensile steel to ensure its strength and grip when handling bulky items.
It is capable of attaching to popular farm machinery including tractors, telehandlers and skid steers, with specific models available for each machinery category depending on size and power.
Rata’s Power Claw is available in three models – standard, mid-range and compact.
The compact models suit tractors between 25–45hp along with small stand-on skid steer loaders, while the mid-range claw suits tractors between 45–75hp, skid steers up to 2.5 tonnes and small loaders.
Various working widths are available within each model, giving farmers the choice of sizes between 1.35m and 2.6m wide as standard.
Rata can also custom build the Power Claw for specific requirements, with Lonsdale having sold units with larger widths of 2.8m, 3m, 3.4m and 4m.
Ideal fit
Lonsdale Merchants is a manufacturer and supplier of various products that suit agriculture and other industries such as construction.
Backed by nearly 30 years of history, the main product it manufactures is a broom that is attached to machines such as telehandlers, skid steers and forklifts for sweeping areas such as grain and fertiliser sheds.
The company’s motto of ‘efficiency, safety, results’ ties in well with the Power Claw, a product which provides those three features.
Henderson met the Rata team when Rata’s Australian headquarters was being set up in Ballarat, and working in the agricultural attachment space meant selling the Power Claw was an attractive proposition for Lonsdale.
That first experience at the 2023 Wimmera Field Days quickly showed Henderson the Power Claw would be a winner; something which has proven to be consistent since.
Lonsdale’s catchment area in western Victoria encompasses plenty of broadacre farms, putting the Power Claw’s primary purposes firmly in the spotlight.
“In a general western Victorian farm, there’s a generally quite a bit of timber,” Henderson says.
“Say you’re farming 5,000 acres or 10,000 acres, you’ve got trees and a lot of limbs fall down every year regardless of whether it’s wet or dry.
“To keep paddocks tidy so farmers can get around with air seeders and boom sprayers, they’ve got to keep on top of those limbs and the Power Claw is really helping there.”
Success stories
Both large-scale cropping farms and grazing operators in the Wimmera region have enjoyed success with the Power Claw since Lonsdale Merchants became a Rata dealer.
Henderson has plenty of stories of farmers getting significant benefits with a Power Claw, particularly in the aftermath of major storms that have felled trees across their properties.
“Earlier in the year – and this has happened probably at least two or three times that I’m acutely aware of since we’ve been helping customers make good decisions with Power Claws – we had a windstorm going through up into the Mallee,” he says.
“Farmers have got limbs across fences and it’s just hours of work if you’ve got to do it manually with a chainsaw, whereas with a Power Claw and telehandler, they can pick up limbs quickly, put them in a heap and burn them.
“Then you get the grazing guys down around Stawell and perhaps further south, which we know a lot of, who have got limbs coming down across fences.
“If you’ve got that happening and you’ve got sheep, you’ve got to do it straight away.
“Some of our other customers that are going entirely to cropping and have gone out of sheep are taking out fences.
“One of them said they cleaned up eight kilometres of fence and talked about the amount of time that it saves.”
While clean-up work is the most common reason for buying a Power Claw, farmers have also experienced benefits beyond what they initially expected.
Around Australia, the Power Claw has even been attached to a remote-controlled mower, while Henderson tells the story of a farmer who has been able to pick up bales of wool using it.
“One of our customers sent a picture with his front end loader and he crowded the Claw over, come down over the top and picked up three bales of wool at a time with the Power Claw,” he says.
“The same guy said in the past they’ve had to pick up big squares or rounds of hay and they put it in the feed wagon, then they’ve got to get up there and cut the strings.
“Now they can have a big square, cut the strings, come over the top with the Power Claw, grab the bale and it all stays together because of the configuration of the tines and they can drop it straight in.”
Ongoing growth
In an agricultural landscape where time saving products are worth their weight in gold, Lonsdale customers have found a winner in Rata’s Power Claw.
“Having worked in agriculture myself for 29 years, farming and shearing, I know a lot of farmers have got trouble with knees, hips, backs and shoulders, and the Power Claw mitigates a lot of that because it’s lifting heavy things,” Henderson says.
“It’s hard to get good staff in the agricultural sector at the moment and a lot of farmers are time poor.
“It also helps them because they’ve got employees requesting them as well, making hard jobs easier, and they can put an employee on a Power Claw for a week and get huge results.
“It’s not a product that we have to worry about when we supply it and wonder if it is going to be any good for farmers.”
Having now spent multiple years as part of Rata’s dealer network, Henderson is full of praise for the relationships built and support received from Rata’s team as the partnership continues to thrive.
“They’ve been very loyal and supportive and nothing seems to be too hard or a problem,” he says.
“Their warranty and backup are absolutely exceptional and they give us a lot of confidence in their backup and their product.”
Rata Equipment’s full range can be viewed online at www.rataequipment.com
Lonsdale Merchants is located at 24-26 Gilchrist Road, Stawell and can be contacted on (03) 5358 3652, 0439 006 830 or 1800 358 983 and its website is www.lonsdalemerchants.com.au
