Farmer-Built Slurry Stirer

Farmer-Built Slurry Stirer MANURE HANDLING Equipment 8-4-6 John Hart, Indianola, Iowa, built his own slurry stirrer using PVC tubing, 1-in. steel pipe, auger flighting, greasable bearings and an electric motor. After a year of hard use he says it works "as good as store-bought". The tube is heavy-walled PVC 12-ft. long and with an inside diameter of slightly over 5¢ in. A 5¢-in. dia. auger, which he made from 1-in. pipe and conventional auger flighting, runs down the center of the tube, anchored in bearings at either end. At the upper end Hart attached a pulley to the pipe where it sticks through the top. At the other end, the pipe simply rides in a bearing, which is sandwiched between two PVC caps fitted over the end of the pipe. There are sixteen 2 1/4-in. dia. holes spaced evenly on four sides of the pipe and two 2 3/4-in. holes in the cap at the far end of the tube. When the auger turns, liquid slurry is drawn inthrough the holes in the sides of the tube and forced out the far end. "It comes out of the end like water out of a firehose," Hart explains. "I've got a pit under a hog barn that's 70 ft. long, 8 ft. deep and 8 ft. wide. I run the stirrer for two hours in each end of the pit before hauling and it agitates as well as any commercial stirrer. It won't plug up because of the speed it's turning and anything that goes in the holes in the side will go out the holes in the bottom." Hart used ordinary greasable bearings on the stirrer. "At $10 apiece, you can buy a lot greasable bearings for the cost of stainless steel and they're simple to replace when they wear out." Hart builds the slurry stirrer on order for $950. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John Hart, Rt. 1, Indianola, Iowa 50125 (ph 515 466-3593).

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