Bulk Feed Bin Built From Cement Mixer

Bulk Feed Bin Built From Cement Mixer LIVESTOCK Feeding Equipment 22-5-44 An old cement mixing truck has found new life as a bulk feed bin on the farm of Jeff and Joel Dewitz near Steele, N. Dak. The mixing chamber was removed from the truck and then mounted upright on 4 legs. Steel ladder rungs were welded to one side to get up to the hatch on top. "It looks like a silver rocket. Our neighbors accuse us of having a spacecraft in our yard, but it was cheap to build and works as well as anything on the market," says Jeff. "We use it to store soybean meal and mineral concentrates for our cow-calf operation. We also use it sometimes to hold seed." The men already had the junked out cement truck which they had originally bought for its running gear. The mixing tub had been left lying in the weeds. They removed all the flighting from inside the tub and installed a steel cone and trap door on the bottom end. A short "cross tube" was bolted to the bottom of the door. A 4-in. dia. auger can be slid into the cross tube to deliver feed into a TMR mixer. Or, the tube can be replaced with an auger hopper in order to load grain into a truck. The roof hatch is spring-loaded and operated by a rope from the ground, making the tub easy to fill. "It can hold about 250 bu. of feed. The only money we spent was on welding wire and welding gas. When we built it 2 years ago we priced 2,000 and 3,000 bu. commercial bins at about $4,500, so one with the same capacity as ours would probably have sold for $1,500 to $3,000," says Jeff. "The original opening on what is now the bottom of the bin was 42 in. in diameter, which was too big. We made a cone by welding together feed stanchions off an old hay feeder. This reduced the opening size to 16 in. in diameter." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joel Dewitz, Rt. 1, Box 60, Steele, N. Dak. 58482 (ph 701 475-2681).

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