burr mill

[Ron chicken food wanted]

I have an old burr mill that I would like to use to grind feed for my chickens.
But I would like to find some info on the speed it should turn and basic settings of the discs.

The unit is cast metal made by:
Northern Minn Machine & Foundry Works
Hallock Minnesota
No.9

The hopper has Buffalo on it.
The unit overall length is three feet, height is two feet and hopper width is two feet.
It was belt driven, with the belt pulley mounted under the hopper area. The pulley is seven inches long by five inches deep.

Any help would be appreciated.Thanks in advance.
 

[Bob Bancroft]

I believe a burr mill and an attrition mill are about the same thing. However it appears that the burr mill generally refers to a kitchen counter top/food device. Whereas attrition mill seems to refer to a larger commercial/feed mill. Perhaps if you did some searching under attrition mill you could find something.
 

[john bowers]

a burr mill has one stationary disc and one rotating disc, an attrition mill has the discs rotating in oposite rotation ie both in motion
don,t know the rpm, but it is slow.
 

[JMS/.MN]

We had an IH burr mill back home. Pulley was similar in size, maybe slightly larger than the WC/WD pulley. Ran the tractor just about wide open, slightly higher than pto rpm.
 

[jackinok]

what I always called a burr mill was one with one fixed metal plate and one driven one with burs on it.that being said,we always ran them pretty slow. maybe 60 rpm or so i would guess. we were mostly grinding meal or flour though,and would not run a whole lot at once. if thats what you have you dont want to let the plates get together,it wears them out fast. we would start with it fairly open and run the meal through getting progressively finer. for the chicken feed it just got cracked up good. we would run out maybe 20-30 lbs of corn for the chickens at once,they didnt get fed a whole lot around our place,mostly just enough to keep them where they would come if you banged the bucket. we never ran any large amount at once.cattle were fed cotton seed. and if we ground feed for them it went through the hammer mill,that we would run really fast.
 

[Leroy]

Never heard of a bur mill that would fit in a kitchen. They are about the same size as a hammer mill. And with the rotating plate and if tried to run fast would spin all what you were trying to grind to outside with centrifugal force. Most what are being called bermills on this site are not burr mills but a different type of grinder.
 

[rrlund]

I believe Letz had one that actually had "Burr Mill" cast right in to them. Some were even on what we'd call grinder/mixers as I recall.
 

[Leroy]

Some place I have the advertising lit around for that Letz mill made in late 30's, could have been early 40's as it was in the items that my Mom's brother or Dad would have gotten at the time they were new. Grandpa passed in 43 and Uncle in 45, never new either one as was one month old when grandpa passed.
 

[Bob Bancroft]

This is current information that I could find on the internet. I was trying to find out if all burr mills are attrition mills, or vice versa.
I suspect that either way, they could be built in any size.
 

[VicS]

We had a Letz burr mill. It was on wheels and had a blower to blow the corn into another wagon. Also had a hopper to schoop into. It had a chain drive on the pto that speeded it up about two to one. So that made it run about a 1000 rpm. We ran it with a MT John Deere. about 2/3 throttle. It pulled it easily. Also it had a knob on the front you tightned or loosened to grind or just crack your corn, what we did. For the horses.
 

[Paul Janke]

Standard belt speed for a tractor is 3100 feet per minute. That would be 3100 divided by pulley circumference in feet would give you revolutions per minute.
 

[JWCarp]

I use burr mills for my corn. I grind corn meal and crack corn. For chickens set the burrs really loose. I never run them very fast. Generally between 1/4 and 1/2 throttle.
 

[GordoSD]

What are you planning to grind and why? A chicken's gizzard does the grinding. They can eat whole kernel corn, acorns, beans, peas all kinds of seeds, wheat, grasshoppers, frogs, snakes. Just about anything whole. Save your time for some job that needs to be done.
 

[Kelly MT]

I have 3 Letz burr mills and a IH mill. The Letz manual calls for 300 RPM for the smaller mills (8 to 12 bu. hr.) and up to 600 RPM on the big mills (60 bu. hr.). It also says never exceed 700 RPM with a mill equipped with prongs or hooks. PK