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Farm Equipment Sales Slump

Farm machinery sales for the past three months were down by 20 per cent.

The flat September quarter result comes ahead of hay baling and grain harvest, with the season drying off and reducing the likelihood of a bumper crop.

Alan Kirsten, managing director of marketing company Agriview, says agricultural machinery sales are worth $3.5 billion a year in Australia, but farmers and contractors are holding back new purchases.

"The baler and hay tools, mowers and rakes. That market is very subdued.

"We've had our fifth year in a row of declining sales.

"With the dry weather in August and September, it slowed down the hay and fodder production."

Rural property seller Ray White says it's seeing more farms going into receivership, and up for sale.

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Trending Video

Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.