Ceramic Tiles Great Choice For Mangers

Ceramic Tiles Great Choice For Mangers LIVESTOCK Feeding Equipment 19-6-34 When Henk Schuurmans converted a tie-stall to a free-stall dairy barn last fall, one of the details he never thought about twice was what manger surface to use. "We went with ceramic tiles because we had them in the tie-stall barn we were converting," says Schuurmans, manager of the Coopon Flora Farm near Almira, Ontario. "The tiles were 10 years old and they still looked like the day we put them in. They weren't pitted from the acids in silage as any other surface would have been. "We clean up leftover feed daily with a Deere lawn tractor with 4-ft. angled blade and rubber tip to prevent damage. It takes only a minute to clean each manger - one-half to one-third the time you'd spend cleaning concrete mangers. We use a pressure washer two to four times a year to remove lodged feed from the grout." The tiles line mangers on each side of the 200-ft. long barn. Three rows of the 8-in. sq. by 1/4-in. thick glazed ceramic tiles were used. Cost of tiling the mangers, including using acid-resistant grout, was $2.50 per sq. ft. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Henk Schuurmans, Coopon Flora Farm, R.R. 1, Almira, Ontario, Canada N3B 2Z1 (ph 519 669-2968; fax 3095).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.