The Schuster family have been farming in the Freeling district for over 140 years, producing premium quality hay for the South Australian horse market for over 80 years and in 2005. They were the first in the world to purchase the Hunterwood Rebaler - a machine which produces our EzyBales.
The hay story began when Edgar L. Schuster came home to work on the family farm around 1924 at the age of 14.
He and his brothers were always looking for new innovative ways of doing things. When he eventually owned his own property this continued.
Initially, Edgar grew hay for the Freeling Chaff mills for the many horses needed in the town early in the 1900's. The hay was produced in sheaves then.
With the arrival of motorized tractors and forms of transport making many horse powered vehicles obsolete, Edgar needed to look to new markets & customers and thus began supplying the Adelaide market.
In the 1950's Edgar's son Merv also came home to work the family farm. The demand for good quality hay continued. It was around this time that the Schuster's purchased the first of their small bale balers.
Gavin Schuster began working on the farm in the early 1980's where he opened new markets for the Schuster hay. Doing their utmost to supply a good quality product; the Schuster's continued producing small bales and purchased a round baler. Later in the 1980's they purchased the first of their large square balers producing 8ft x 4ft x 4ft bales.
Changeable weather during baling season with the threat of rain spoiling bales made the need to cart hay out of the paddock and undercover crucial. Having the 3 different styles of bales (small, large and round bales) made it difficult to cart the bales all at the same time.
Gavin thought there must be a better way of making hay. After almost 4 years of investigating baling techniques he came up with concept of slicing large square bales into smaller bales which could be placed on pallets.
This whole process could happen inside a shed, allowing the farmer to make small square bales undercover, whether it was rain, hail or sunshine.
In conjunction with the Canadian firm Hunterwood Technologies - EzyBale was born.