Farmers are being urged to ‘stop and pop’ the bonnet – checking for birds nests tucked into farm vehicles and machinery which can cause more than $1 million in insurance claims.<\/p>\n
Rural insurer FMG said nesting birds cause $1.2m worth of tractor fire claims annually, and were linked to about a third of the 100 such claims in the past three years.<\/p>\n
It’s not just tractors either – FMG has seen nests cause fires in quad bikes, side-by-sides, cars, utes and other machinery as well.<\/p>\n
Loss prevention manager Abby France said starling birds – whose breeding season runs from September to December – are “incredibly resourceful” when it comes to building nests, particularly during this time when there’s an abundance of dry grass.<\/p>\n
“They can squeeze into surprisingly small spaces and build a nest much faster than people expect … a bird can build a nest in the time it takes you to stop for smoko or have a cup of tea.”<\/p>\n
She said it meant farmers should check the bonnet – stop and pop – every time before starting work. It was also worth considering leaving the bonnet up when machinery is parked to help discourage birds from nesting.<\/p>\n
“It’s a quick check that can prevent a costly and potentially dangerous fire.”<\/p>\n
France said tractor fires especially could be “devastating”.<\/p>\n
“It’s not only that you lose a valuable piece of machinery, but the disruption can have a significant impact on your day-to-day farming operations – especially as we head into baleage and solage season.<\/p>\n
“That’s a piece of kit that you need and they’re not always the easiest to replace.”<\/p>\n
As tractor fires can spread quickly and rural fire crews can’t always reach a property before significant damage has occurred, France said it was good to have a fire extinguisher to hand as well.<\/p>\n
She also suggested clearing overgrown trees around driveways as fire appliances need four metres clearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farmers are being urged to ‘stop and pop’ the bonnet – checking for birds nests tucked into farm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-647029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}