Chicken Mash Made With Wind Power

Chicken Mash Made With Wind Power ENERGY Wind Power Why buy chicken mash if you can make it yourself with homemade equipment food scraps and alfalfa hay? Jeff Hoard an off-grid inventor makes his mash with equipment made from his salvage pile and some of it powered by the wind “I grind alfalfa with my wind-powered grinder and add flour from grain we grow eggshells coffee grounds and a little purchased vitamins and electrolytes ” says Hoard “I mix it up good with my barrel tumbler and squirt in a little used vegetable oil to bind it The smell drives the chickens crazy!” The wind-powered alfalfa mill consists of a fan blade made from a barrel top cut into sections and bent into vane shapes Sheet metal extensions bolt to the vanes to gather more wind A center shaft on the fan blades drives a 30:1 right angle worm-drive gearbox that drives a vertical shaft to the alfalfa mill A tail attached to the gearbox keeps the fan pointed into the wind To help keep the fan and tail aligned in high winds Hoard anchors it to an upright pole mounted in an old wheel The shaft runs through a cross frame fixed to the top of a 50-gal drum with holes cut in its bottom Two 1/4-in by 1-in steel wiper blades are fixed to the end of the shaft resting on the bottom of the drum The drum rests on tabs fixed to the inside of the end of a slightly larger “hopper” barrel half that rests on a shipping pallet Aluminum straps secure the barrel to the hopper with chains securing it to the pallet “Hay dropped into the barrel gets ground through the holes by the wiper blades when the wind blows ” explains Hoard “When the hopper is full we simply swap it out with a second hopper ” Eggshells and a mix of grain are run through an old flour mill Hoard replaced the hand crank drive with a pulley and mounted it with an old Briggs and Stratton engine to a sheet of plywood Ground alfalfa flour eggshells and other ingredients are mixed together in Hoard’s tumbler It’s another 55-gal barrel that is mounted to an old appliance mover A plastic lid covers one barrel end and rests on two lawn mower wheels attached by struts from the appliance mover The other end of the barrel is supported by a shaft attached to its end that runs through a pillow block bearing to a hand crank The bearing is on a vertical pipe that extends from the top end of the appliance mover “When we need some chicken mash we can roll the tumbler into place lay the appliance mover on the ground and add ingredients ” says Hoard “Two L-shaped blades welded to the insides of the tumbler catch the material as the barrel is turned and tumble it together ” Used vegetable oil from a friend’s restaurant is strained and poured into a small hand sprayer Simply setting it in the sun is enough to warm it most days says Hoard “My wife points the sprayer wand through a hole in the tumbler and sprays in enough oil to bind the mash ” he says “It makes a great layer mash ” Hoard shares his “creative scrounging” ideas and projects on his Hillbilly Heaven CD available at his website Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Hoard Manufacturing HC 61 Box 6108 Austin Nevada 89310 hmranch@wildblue net; www hmranch-hoardmfg com

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