No-Waste Feeder Doubles As Hauler

No-Waste Feeder Doubles As Hauler LIVESTOCK Feeding Equipment 14-2-10 A 20-ft. long trailer enclosed by a 3 1/2-ft. high wire hog panel makes a great "no-waste" round bale feeder for sheep and also doubles as a sheep hauler, says John McNaughton, Farmington, Minn. "With other feeders sheep grab a mouthful of hay and pull their heads out, allowing hay to fall onto the ground. The openings on my feeder are only 4 in. wide and 8 in. long so once sheep get their heads through the openings they're more likely to stay there. The trailer is equipped with a gate so when I'm not using the trailer to feed sheep I can use it to haul them," says McNaughton, who feeds out about 50 ewes a year. His neighbor, Don Kamen, built the rig by mounting 20-ft. long, 3-in. wide I-beams lengthwise along both sides of a 5-ft. wide axle removed from an old fertilizer spreader. He welded upright pipes to the I-beams and installed a wood plank floor by slipping the ends of the plank into the slots on the I-beams. The wire hog panels had 2 by 2-in. openings at the bottom and 4 by 8-in. openings at the top. Kamen flipped the panels upside down and welded them to the pipes so sheep could feed through the bigger openings. McNaughton uses a front-end loader to load bales through a 6-ft. wide gate along one side of the trailer. Using a hay knife, he cuts each bale in half, then rolls the bale halves to either end of the trailer. The trailer's tongue slides back into a sleeve under the trailer so McNaughton can slide it out of the way when it's being used as a feeder. A jack on the hitch supports the front end of the trailer. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John McNaughton, RR 1, Box 177, Farming-ton, Minn. 55024 (ph 612 463-8277).

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