Contractor Vind

Contractor Kim Vind is fully satisfied with his COUGAR, which has met all his expectations. "When we bought the COUGAR, we thought we could replace both our butterfly sets, and although we kept one butterfly set, on the whole we are now harvesting more grass than two years ago. Without the COUGAR, we'd have needed 3 butterfly sets."

At first, Kim Vind had some concerns about the reliability of the machine: "Two years ago, there weren't many COUGARs about. But, I have to say, the machine has worked perfectly. And any time we've had a problem, our local CLAAS dealer has given us excellent support."

Kim Vind says that some of his customers have low-lying marsh-like fields, and were concerned about ground pressure when they first saw the COUGAR. However, experience has shown that the COUGAR with its 900 mm wide tyres has better load-bearing capacity than ordinary tractors. "Now and again, we notice that, with the swather attached, the tractor gets stuck or makes tracks in places where the COUGAR didn't have any problems at all."

"The COUGAR is surprisingly manoeuvrable and makes light work of "opening" fields. If the field ends at a farm track, stream or the like, all I have to do is a circuit to open the field," reports Morten, a driver.

From a cost viewpoint, Kim Vind likes the fact that the COUGAR costs roughly the same per hectare as a butterfly set: "The difference is that one man can harvest a bigger area with the COUGAR than with the butterfly. With the acquisition of the COUGAR, therefore, we have achieved one of our main objectives: to have more time and greater flexibility. Morten, who is the COUGAR's regular driver, is happy to clock off at 4 o'clock secure in the knowledge he has done a full day's work and given all other machines involved in the grass harvesting process as much work as they can handle."

When we visited Morten in the field, he had just begun harvesting about 120ha of arable land. In the first season (2007), Kim Vind's COUGAR harvested approx. 4,000ha in roughly 350 harvesting hours. However, Morten expects to achieve more this year because be has become more experienced and now operates his COUGAR intuitively. "My one-day record is 145ha in 11 hours. That includes a 40 km trip to the field and back. I am very happy with 'my' COUGAR, and I definitely wouldn't exchange it for the 'old' butterfly set," says the driver.