How a backyard invention to feed livestock is helping save the lives of farmers

Fifth-generation cattleman and Briagolong grazier Matt Higgins designed the Gippy Bale Feeder in the wake of the 2008 drought, but it wasn't until COVID that his life-changing invention hit the commercial market.

Mr Higgins, a boiler maker by trade who has worked as a welding inspector in recent years, said the idea came about when his father was feeding cattle at Glenmaggie during the 2008 drought.

"He was buying in big squares and he's in very hilly country and was feeding out the way most farmers do it: pop the ute in low range and jump on the back," he said.

"He nearly killed himself one day when the ute took off... and I wanted to do something about it."

The 135-kilogram feeder uses a winch controlled by a remote control from the driver's seat of a vehicle, dropping the biscuits of hay for sheep and cattle without the need to touch the supplementary feed.

Farmers load the hay onto the feeder itself and once in the paddock, the operator can cut and tie the rope to the rear of the feeder before a gate pushes the hay from the front to the back of the ute.

The speed of how long the hay takes to hit the ground is controlled by the driver.

Scrap metal was used to design the first prototype Gippy Bale Feeder, which lasted about six years.

As a fly-in, fly-out worker, Mr Higgins had some time on his hands during the coronavirus pandemic and decided to tweak the design on his farm during one of the lockdowns.

"The beauty is we're feeding cattle all the time with it so we're able to work out what works, what doesn't work and what keeps it simple and cost effective as well," Mr Higgins said.

"We put it to market on the social media platforms and got a lot of interest and all of a sudden people wanted to buy them."

Since hitting the market, the Higgins family has sold 64 Gippy Bale Feeders, with 62 of them sold via its promotion on social media channels Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

The feeders have been sold to clients in Texas and California, and graziers in Roma, Qld, Goondiwindi, Qld, Albany, WA, Melrose, SA, Carcoar, NSW, Jindabyne, NSW and across rural and regional Victoria.

"We sold a batch of seven to a rancher in Texas who just called me up one Sunday and said he wanted to buy 10 of them," Mr Higgins said.

"I said you could fit seven on a pallet more easily, and before long we were shipping them to the US."

The feeder is designed to be placed on the back of a single-cab, one-tonne ute.

It is powered by a 50-amp, 12-volt Anderson plug.

'In hilly country you can point the vehicle down the hill and then it will push a bale back up the hill off the ute," Mr Higgins said.

"A feature of the feeder is when you get to the end of the bale, the gate kicks up and throws the last biscuit of hay off which indicates to the driver that it's all done and fed out."

Mr Higgins, who has also developed a double feeder which weighs 160kg, said a motivating factor to ramp up the production was the stories he had heard from clients who had experienced near-death experiences like his father while feeding hay from the rear of a ute or trailer.

"They talk about the accidents they've had... I had the kids of an old fella who bought him one for Christmas tell me that the belt loop on his jeans got caught on the side of the tray as the ute was moving," he said.

"It actually dragged him down the paddock and he couldn't unhook himself."

The feeder also helps reduce respiratory exposure to fodder.

"My father suffers from asthma and when your hay has a lot of dust in it, he is far better off in the cab of the ute with the windows wound up," he said.

Mr Higgins said the concept of the Gippy Bale Feeder was simple, but innovative.

"I had one guy who bought a feeder from me two and a half years ago, it's never left the back of the ute, and it's fed out close to 10,000 bales up near Benalla," he said.

"You can imagine the saving in costs in labour, and the increase in safety."