Grinder mixers

[krob]

Looking for info on grinder mixers. I?m wanting to grind and mix hay and corn for sheep feed. TMR mixers are out of my price range for small herd. I was thinking I could use a Gehl or New Holland or other brand of grinder mixer and just feed the hay in by hand. Ration will be mostly hay. Are some models better for hay grinding than others. I know I say a video some time ago of a fellow using a grinder with a hay table on it that let him slowly feed the bales in. Not sure if that was specific model or optional. I haven?t been around grinder mixers since I was a kid in the 70?s, so just looking for little advice on which ones to look for. Thanks

 

[JD Seller]

To make/grind a mix that is almost all hay the hay will need to be bone dry. You will need to run a screen to keep the material length short enough it does not bridge up in the mixer. Even then I am not sure how it would work. I used to add a bale or two to my batches of feed. Usually very dry alfalfa. I just feed it in flake at a time. It is hard on the hammer mill and takes power. You do not want to put in too big of a flake or you will kill the tractor or plug the hammer mill.

Maybe some of the fellows from out west would have more first hand experience. The mixers I have seen with a hay table usually came from the western part of the plains.

 

[mudcreek183]

The NH 357 had an automatic bale feed table on it.Had a friend that had one I know it took a lot of HP to keep the thing from not bogging down and keep a steady flow of hay going in.You need to put some grain it with the hay to keep it from bridging

 

[westga]

I'm currently looking at one to do about the same thing. It comes down to the size screen. Seems like we used a 1" screen to grind the hay. We would give it a flake at a time but it give a 45 horse tractor a workout. try to grind hay with a 1/2 " screen will bogg tractor down. Looking at a New Holland 355 myself.

 

[LarryH]

there is really only one mill and that is a bearcat built like tanks-------the worst ones and we work on them is john deere----new Holland the bearcat nos. are 950 and 1250 callme if you need info 270-528-2431 nite 59 cst

 

[krob]

Maybe I?m barking up the wrong tree.
Larryh, did you mean John Deere AND New Holland?s were bad? Or just John Deere?
Horse power shouldn?t be a problem, it would be on a 1175 case.

 

[rrlund]

I had a 700 Deere that had a hay grinder attachment. It had a short elevator under the auger to feed bales in. I never used it,just ground ear corn and oats with it,but the original owner who I bought if from said he always ground hay with it.

 

[DoubleR]

I had a JD 400 and now have a Artsway 325A. I usually grind a bale of hay in my steer feed mix and did so with both of these. I just feed a clunk in at a time and usually have a 1/2 inch screen in. I do so where the top of the pickup auger feeds into the grinder CAREFULLY.I believe the manual on both of them recommended that way.It will bog a small tractor down for a second or so but not a big deal.

 

[fastfarmall]

I have done it with the 21 inch Gehl and the 425A Arts way, either way it's a slow process, when you put in too big a package of hay, it goes in with a thud ! I never tried it but, the hay should be run thru a tub grinder first, but that's a lot of fooling around for the little bit of hay you want to mix in, and it's got to be dry hay.

 

[Leroy]

Never had a grinder-mixer. Just an old David Bradley 10" hammer mill. The mill was too small an opening to take a full flake so had to tear them apart to feed it. Thought would need small screen so started with that, ended up using the 1" screen and hay was as fine as you could want it. We just baged the hay in burlap bags untill time to take to elevator to get the hog feed ground and then it was just dumped into the mixer sane as any supplement or alfalfa meal they sold. Also did that with chicken feed. Only problem was the 10" instead of the 15" size and it was just a gravity feed table. And as for power took very little, the 23 horse John Deere B would not even open the govener when a flake went through. And never ant stickiness either. We used the chaff of the bale wagon after unloading that was mostly the good leaves that got knocked off in handling the bale. Never had it tested, at that time did not know there was such a thing. But we knew what the alfalfa meal was made out of at that time and it was thw worst hay that could be found all weedy. They just mixed enough good hay in to keep figures up to what they had to do to sell it. I am sure what we fed would have tested way higher that the overpriced alfalfa meal tested. When ran out of baler chalf then went to bales with no grinding problem. Biggest thing was staking down the mill to tighten belt to it.

 

[krob]

Maybe I?m barking up the wrong tree.
Larryh, did you mean John Deere AND New Holland?s were bad? Or just John Deere?
Horse power shouldn?t be a problem, it would be on a 1175 case.

 

[RGMartin]

Have you priced a grinder mixer? A usable(gehl 125/NH 355 or similar) one here starts at 5K and goes up.

 

[fixerupper]

I used to pitch hay from round bales into an old Gehl silage chopper for feeding stock cows. It gave me a good workout but didnt require a very large tractor.

 

[Leroy]

The chopper would not cut it fine enough to put thru a mixer in feed. It could be a good way to feed the grinder on the mixer tho. My choppers were a Coop and a NH flywheel type of chopper the same as all the Gehl that I have seen and we had a very good Gehl dealer when they were new so most choppers and self unloading wagons were Gehl.