The owner of one of Australia's largest hay rake manufacturers has hit a new milestone in his 30th year of operation by selling his 1500th hay rake to a Riverina contractor.
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Simon Schinckel, founder of Schinckel's Hayrakes, delivered one of his machines to Holbrook's Brett Strong.
Mr Schinckel was proud of the milestone.
"We've been operating for 30 years and it works out to an average of 50 a year, so it's not a bad average for a little manufacturing business," he said.
Mr Schinckel started his business, which is one of only a small handful of Australian owned hay rake manufacturers, after working in the industry overseas.
"When I started making hay rakes in 1991, well I had no idea where I was going to go with them," he said.
"I was tied up with a company from New Zealand for a few years and then I decided I'd branch out and go my own way.
"It's easier to make what we needed out here in Australia."
Schinckel's Hayrakes is based in Naracoorte in South Australia, but Mr Schickel said he's sold up to 500 machines to farmers in the Riverina and North East Victoria over the three decades of operating his business.
Holbrook contractor Brett Strong said he was happy to support a homegrown manufacturer.
"To get something that's made out of Austraila, that's going to produce a good windrow, that you can get a good bale out of, is good," he said.
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Mr Strong said the new rake was "totally different" to his last one.
"It's wider than my old rake was so I'll get more into a windrow, instead of raking only two mower windrows I can rake three into one," he said.
Mr Schinckel said the design had been "jazzed up" compared to his other rakes.
"It's got all our standard features on it, plus a few extra ones we've brought out this year," he said.
"It's got rear steering, it's got dual casters on the raking arms.
"It's got tail lights on it, it's got wind shields on all the wheels, we use them all the time, in the centre of it, it's got hydraulic lift spreaders that we bought out this year.
"Our spreaders have always been manual, but we decided we wanted to go a hydraulic lift this year, so we put that on Brett's rake as well."
Mr Strong said he was keen to start using the rake when it was dry enough.
"The way it's going who knows when we're going to start," he said.
"I'm hoping we'll get going soon, but then there's still going to be a fair bit of water in the ground, so there's still going to be a lot of moisture to contend with."
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