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Feed Wagon "Customized"
Keith Schole uses only one tractor to do all of the chores and fieldwork necessary on his Pickardville, Alberta cow-calf operation. Because of this, it was awkward in spring when he needed to put his duals on for fieldwork, since the unloading spout on his Schuler 175BF feed wagon no longer reached the feed bunks.
To solve the problem, he decided to build a spout extension. He ordered three feet of 11-in. left hand auger flighting from his feed wagon dealer. Schole then had three feet of trough extension built from 3/16-in. thick galvanized sheet metal to match the existing wagon spout. He had a removable coupler machined to fit the auger flighting. It can be unbolted when no longer needed. Then he mounted the new trough extension by bolting angle iron on the length of the trough.
"I built the extension a little longer than necessary to accommodate any size duals," he says. "Now I can use a fairly wide tractor and still reach the feed bunks. The only disadvantage is that you need about 16 1/2 feet of clearance through field gates and feeding pens, plus, more care is needed generally to move the unit in the yard."
The project cost Schole $200 (flighting - $100, trough - $45, trough lining - $30.00 and machined flighting link plug - $25.00)
Schole made another modification to the feed wagon. The unit was originally geared for unloading with a 540 PTO in the tractor and he didn't want to switch stub shafts on his Deere 4450 tractor between using his feed wagon and his bale shredder, which required a 1,000 pto drive.
"The feed wagon had an 11-in. belt drive pulley and turned the wagon gears much too fast on a 1000 PTO stub shaft, which would lead to excessive wear, even when the tractor was idled down," Schole explains. "To solve this problem, I sized the 11-in. pulley down to a 5 1/2-in. pulley."
Contact: FARM SHOW Follow-up, Keith Schole, Rt. 1, Pickardville, Alberta, Canada T0G 1W0 (ph 780 349-3538), E-mail: jschole@west-teq.net).


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2003 - Volume #27, Issue #1