Regularly forking out for new forage harvesters is one way of keeping reliability in check, but Neil Jones has found it far more cost effective to build strength in numbers.

Instead of having one or two warranty-protected youngsters at his disposal, the Haverfordwest-based contractor has a series of well-worked veterans on the books.

Three of these are Jaguar 900s from the 2000s.

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Though breakdown risk is a little higher than it is for those running factory-fresh choppers, he has plenty of capacity to bench one should it start giving trouble.

Plus, costs are far lower as most of them were paid for years ago.

“If you add up the value of all my foragers, you get to about £260,000, which wouldn’t get me one new machine,” he says.

“Those can also breakdown and are just as likely to have their insides bashed up by a big stone, so I’d rather stick as I am.”

The flipside is that he needs to keep on top of maintenance and has to be prepared to shoulder the odd hefty bill for refurbishment work.

Having one full-time member of workshop staff helps keep these costs down, as does the fact that several of his operators are happy to wield the spanners when required.

“I budget on spending an average of £8,000-£9,000/year on each to keep them up together – often it’s only £2,000-£3,000, but every now and again I’ll have to spend £20,000.”

Some of the bigger jobs they’ve tackled include replacing feed rollers, a full chute assembly, drum bearings, a four-wheel-drive gearbox and a blower.

“We’d even put an engine in one if we had to – it’s all minor stuff compared to the finance payments and depreciation you get with new machines,” he says.

Another bonus of having three near-identical models is that all of the parts are interchangeable, allowing bits to be “borrowed” from one to keep another going while waiting for replacements to arrive.

Though most tasks are tackled in the farm workshop, some bigger jobs are entrusted to nearby dealer Riverlea, particularly if there’s a breakdown in the middle of the season.

“I avoid it if I can as the labour rates are so expensive, but sometimes you’ve just got to do it.”

Ideal size

Another perk of the 900s is that their output is well suited to the average farm setup in the area.

Blocks of land tend to be small, as are many of the clamps, and there are considerable distances to travel on the road.

This means there’s often little point running his larger machine – a 2017 Jaguar 970 – as it fills the trailers in no time and then has to sit around waiting for them to come back.

And, once it has finished the field, the whole operation has to stop while it trundles to the next block.

Instead, Neil will often run two 900s so that one can go ahead and wait in the next area.

This helps keep the trailers full, but turns them over at a steady pace that doesn’t overwhelm the clamps.

These are constructed using either a JCB 435 or one of three 416 loading shovels which, again, are chosen according to the farm setup.

“We basically look at the jobs we’ve got on each day and decide which is the best combination of foragers, trailers and loading shovels,” says Neil.

Getting these decisions right helps him get around his annual workload – 4,000ha of grass, 600ha of maize and 200ha of wholecrop – as efficiently as possible.

24 chopping seasons

Oldest of the foraging fleet is a 2002 Jaguar 900, which was the last chopper Neil bought new at a cost of £125,000.

It’s worked 24 consecutive seasons and is still putting in a regular shift, despite having tallied 6,500 hours.

Plenty of parts have been replaced over the years due to the wear and tear of processing so much crop.

It has only had one major mechanical mishap – a catastrophic engine failure that happened when it was three years old and on 1,500 hours.

Despite it being out of warranty, Claas footed the lion’s share of the bill and it’s been going strong ever since.

“It was clearly some sort of manufacturing fault – one of the con rods punched through the side of the block – but they didn’t have to stand by it,” he says.

“I’ve always found Claas to be good like that.”

More recently, a blade came off the fan, causing the whole machine to vibrate wildly.

Fortunately, it didn’t go through the radiator and, to make sure none of the others did the same, they fitted a whole new assembly rather than replacing that one section.

Due to the quantity of material that’s been channelled through the feed rollers over the years these had worn to the point they were losing grip, so replacements were recently installed at a cost of about £3,000.

Green eye Jags

The 2002 model’s 600hp, 16-litre Mercedes V8 provides a power output of 600hp, which is ample for most work.

However, the two newer “green eye” versions have an extra 30hp on tap and a higher 40kph top speed that cuts the amount of travelling time.

The oldest of these is a 2009 model that was purchased second-hand from Riverlea when it was on 600 hours.

Neil paid £148,000 for it at the time, which was £50,000 less than a new one.

It’s now done 10 times that amount of work and the only repairs have been due to wear and tear or smashes from foreign objects.

The same can be said of its 2010 sibling, purchased from a dealer in Ireland for £125,000 when it was on 1,000 hours – it’s now on 5,500.

But it has had one unexpected major repair: despite being the least worked 900 in the fleet, the chute recently wore out and had to be replaced, while the others are still soldiering on with their originals.

“We priced up the metal to refurbish it, but it was cheaper to buy a whole new assembly,” says Neil.

Jaguar 970

The most recent addition to the line-up is a 2017 Jaguar 970 that was bought for £160,000 in 2023 with 1,500 hours on the clock.

“I wasn’t desperate for another machine at the time, but it was a good deal, I knew where it had come from and it hadn’t done that much work,” says Neil.

“Although I’m happy to run foragers up to high hours, I prefer us to be the ones to put them on as we know they’ve been properly looked after – you never know when you buy a well-worked machine off someone else.”

With its 16-litre MAN V8 putting out 775hp, spot work rates are in a different league to the 900s.

However, for the reasons mentioned earlier, it only tends to get used for larger blocks of grass and maize.

It’s done about 500 hours in two years of ownership and has had one notable breakdown in that time.

This was a failed set of drum bearings, possibly caused by a combination of the previous owner being overzealous with the pressure washer and then it being parked up for a couple of seasons.

They packed up during the first season so, in the interests of getting it up and running quickly, it was sent to Riverlea to have them replaced at a cost of about £5,000.

900s here to stay

Despite having one newer model on the fleet, Neil has no plans to modernise further.

“I lot of people ask why I don’t just sell them all and get one big machine, but it would cost far more money and be less efficient.” 

Partly, this is because he wouldn’t be able to have foragers running in multiple locations.

But it would also scupper the opportunity to have different machines set up for wholecrop, grass and maize, which currently saves a huge amount of time when those seasons overlap.

As a result, the 900s will be staying put for the foreseeable future.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to push them to 10,000 hours or more,” he says.