Farm injury triggers innovative take on docking iron
Thursday, 19 March 2026
A docking invention born out of an injury could help reduce repetitive strain injuries on the farm.
Feilding man Ben Nitschke’s invention is the Electronic Docking Iron, or EDI, a new take on the traditional tool used to remove lambs’ tails to prevent fly-strike.
The traditional iron, which resembles a large pair of scissors with a hot iron on the end, sears the tail off and has to be squeezed by hand. Farmers can dock hundreds of lambs per day.
Nitschke’s version of the docking iron needs the user to only pull a trigger instead. The hot iron was still heated by a gas bottle but the scissor mechanism was battery powered.
EDI will be one of the businesses on display at Manfeild during Central Districts Field Days, which starts on Thursday.
Field Days is a three-day agricultural event that draws thousands of people to Feilding every year to see exhibitors from the primary sector showcase things such as machinery, rural innovation and competitions.
Nitschke’s family farms at Beaconsfield, north of Feilding, and while growing up he spent many years docking.
His father suffered an injured hand just before the 2021 season, which got Nitschke, a mechanical engineer, thinking of other ways to do it.
“Farm safety is all about things like rollover bars on four-wheelers and that.
“But it’s about the other injuries too like repetitive strain injury from using the old manual irons, which is massive. So if you can eliminate one of those, it’s good too.”
This was the 21st prototype and he had refined the gas-heated head and the way it was motorised.
“The big thing is just how much mechanical force it takes and how much grip strength it takes to actually do the job.”
The battery on it could be used for about 2000 lambs.
He said the people who had bought one were happy with the product, particularly those who had arm injuries and especially if they were docking 2000 lambs a day.
The trigger meant anyone could do it rather than someone relying on brute strength.
“It frees up resources. At a lot of places, if Big John doesn’t show up to work on that day, they say, ‘Oh, who’s going to work the iron?’
“Whereas with this it’s just pass the tool to the next person.”
Some older farmers were sceptical about using something new because they had used a traditional iron for decades, he said, but “normally once they get the hang of it and swing around, it becomes invaluable”.
It hadn’t taken much to convince his father to use one.
It was more expensive than a traditional docking iron but Nitschke said the cost was on par with other battery-powered tools.
He was now looking at selling it in Australia.