• Advantage Feeders' focus is to help individual farmers make more profit by incorporating feeding systems on to their farms. One way of making it easy for farmers to use our system is to provide extensive information about.
  
  1) Using the Feeders
  
  2) Moving the Feeders
  
  3) How much feed is being consumed
  
  4) Identifying Shy Feeders
  
  
• Advantage Feeders' business structure allows us to deliver the most cost effective products to our clients. We pass on savings to our customers, selling the best value product range on the market.
• We flat-pack our feeders and pass on cheaper freight and assembly costs to the customer worldwide.
• We mass produce and pass on savings from bulk buying power and economies of scale.
• Advantaged Feeders is investing in farming; in particular the move to increase valued production without having to increase resources. Advantage Feeders has previously supported a trial into lamb production from ewes with different wool lengths. Read more.
• In 2011 Advantage Feeders has run trials for cattle creep feeding, cattle hay feeding and looking at ways of preventing bossy and/or gorging sheep behaviour with lick feeders.

In March 2009, Advantage Feeders won the Woolorama New Release award for the grain/lick feeders.

Where it started…

Advantage Feeders was started in 2006 by Gerard Roney. Gerard grew up as one of seven children on a sheep and cropping property in Axedale, central Victoria. He developed his main product, the grain feeder, while he was studying at university. In 2005 Gerard bought 1000 ewes, and found that the feeders he bought could not offer a low enough ration. Gerard wanted to feed 250g/head/day, but the feeders only had one adjusting slide, and the lowest consistent ration he was able to feed was 600/head/day. The inability to feed a low ration meant that Gerard was finding the cost of feed and feeding very expensive, and was struggling to find the time to constantly feed the sheep.

Gerard spent 6 months making and testing prototypes featuring the Dual Adjustment System that he had developed. His goal was to develop a system within grain feeders that would limit the sheep to accessing only what they could touch with their tongue at any one time. Gerard's trials indicated that sheep were leaving a feeder set to a low ration after about 5 minutes of feeding.

Gerard set up a video which showed that sheep could only eat from the restricted settings when they had saliva on their tongue. Once the saliva had dried out – after about 5 minutes of feeding – the sheep has to wait for it to build back up again before revisiting the feeder. It is because of this that when the slides of an Advantage Feeder are in the restricted setting, sheep are fed approximately 200g/head/day. Advantage Feeders’ grain lick feeders have since been used successfully with sheep, cattle and goats.

Where are we now?…

Advantage Feeders has expanded across Australia and New Zealand since its beginning in 2006. Advantage Feeders has since sold to over 2000 customers, and is continually looking to expand and improve its product range. Advantage Feeders has grown from consisting of just Gerard to now having 8 full time employees and over 40 distributors across Australia and New Zealand.

The Advantage Feeders Team

	Dave Harrington Dave is based in Inverell, NSW and is the Sales Manager for NSW and QLD, as well as being the Inverell distributor. In addition to this role, Dave is also responsible for making hundreds of follow up calls to customers Australia wide. Dave is married with 3 grown up children, and has previously spent 20 years in the NSW Police Force, working in the central west, far west and north west of NSW. Over the last 5 years Dave has had a small sheep trading business, buying store lambs from the local saleyards and finishing them on grain and hay. Before Dave joined the Advantage Feeders team, he was an enthusiastic user of Advantage Feeders products with his sheep. Dave attends the majority of field days across NSW and QLD for Advantage Feeders, and will soon become a familiar face.
	Luke Hipwell In addition to being our Axedale distributor, Luke is the Advantage Feeders Logistics Manager. Luke is responsible for overseeing the warehousing of our stock, and arranging for it to be sent all over Australia. Luke also assists in building prototypes and trialling new products and developments. Luke is based in Bendigo, Victoria and spends his free time developing his computer programming skills.
	Roan Lyddy-Meaney Roan joined the Advantage Feeders team as our Quality Assurance Manager in 2010. Roan is a mechanical engineer and has 10 years of computer generated software design experience within the retail fuel industry. Roan is responsible for creating the design specifications for all of our products, and oversees all elements of their manufacturing.
	Brendan Roney Brendan is Gerard’s older brother, and joined the Advantage Feeders team in 2009 as Technical Manager. Brendan is an electrical engineer, and has experience working with Ford and Bosch in Australia and Germany. Brendan is based in Ballarat, Victoria and plays a large role in product development and manufacturing. Brendan is also involved with sales, and is a familiar face at field days across Victoria, SA and WA.
	Emma Roney Emma began working for Advantage Feeders in 2009. Emma trained as a lawyer, but has found she is better suited to a family business environment rather than a large city law firm. Emma’s role is largely behind the scenes – she is responsible for overseeing the administrative side of the business, and of producing marketing material.
	Gerard Roney Gerard is involved in all facets of Advantage Feeders, but is most recognisable in his role as Sales Manager. Gerard attends field days across Australia and New Zealand, and is the driving force behind Advantage Feeders’ expansion.
	Jordie Roney Jordie is based in Ballarat, Victoria and from 2012 will be responsible for arranging for Advantage Feeders to attend field days across Australia and New Zealand.

Where Advantage Feeders is going…

Advantage Feeders is looking to continue expanding across Australia and New Zealand. In 2012 Advantage Feeders is hoping to begin selling products in the UK, Ireland, US, Canada and South Africa markets, and from there expand into France, Germany, Spain, Brazil and Argentina.