Aussie made Offsider takes calf handling for a spin

“I got sick of waiting for someone to come and help.” Andrea Brosnan of Offsider Agricultural Equipment explains how their award winning Spin-A-Calf came into being. “With my family members having off farm jobs and cattle prices what they were, I either had to wait for a hand or pay someone. Neither of those options appealed to me.”

Fortunately for Ms Brosnan, her father in law Gerald Hicks (previously of MetalCorp and Carinya) had been developing a solution to single person calf marking. Putting his experience together with his son David’s engineering problem solving background, the Spin-A-Calf was born.

“We wanted to find a way to minimise the brute strength needed to mark and handle calves. All the options available still relied on throwing the calf down or getting in the race with them,” said David. “They still caused stress to the calf and to the operator.”

“The Spin-A-Calf moves the animal while standing up, out of the race, and toward you. You are relying less on the physical strength of the operator, because the machine uses pivot points and a specialised head bail system to keep the calf secure and calm.”

“We tested the prototype using our 6 year old nephew as the operator. We figured if he could catch, spin, mark and inject the calf, it was safe to say that almost anyone could.”

With  a worldwide patent on the mechanism, Spin-A-Calf has been acknowledged as an innovation in cattle handling, being awarded The Land Machine of the Year at Australian National Field Days in 2019, along with the NAB Agribusiness Excellence Award and Highly Commended Henty Machine of the Year.

It was important for Offsider Ag to keep the manufacturing in Australia.  “Australian production gives us real time influence over quality, and using Australian steel and local timber keeps us insulated from things like COVID-19 or Chinese New Year. We are keeping jobs in our community and keeping our town alive,” Ms Brosnan explained.

It also makes good business sense, with Offsider Ag able to customise orders and respond to customer feedback. “We have products like our Stud Sheep Handler and Dairy Calf Handler as a direct result of working with customers to build what they need. It is almost impossible to do that if the manufacturing is overseas.”

“We are constantly working on and testing new products, with a couple of real gamechangers to be released in the new financial year.”

See the full range of products at www.offsiderag.com.au