Iowan Equips Combine With Residue Grinder

Iowan Equips Combine With Residue Grinder COMBINES Accessories 12-2-21 "There's a lot of feed value in residue falling out the back of a combine and the only way to get it is by not letting it hit the ground," says Iowa farmer Bill Manthe, of Lake View, who pulls a residue collector and grinder behind his combine to salvage the valuable "free" feed. "Every fanner with a beef cow herd should be doing this." Manthe has used his residue collector-grinder for four years. It hooks onto a hitch at the rear of the combine and is independently powered by a 50 hp Deutz diesel engine. A belt conveyor carries residueùfines, stalks, husks and cobs ù from the combine discharge into the hammer-mill 8• The mill grinds and pulverizes the "huscklage" residue and blows it into a trailing forage wagon. A special-made hitch allows the wagon to make 90? turns with no problem. "The combine has no trouble pulling the grinder and wagon," says Man-the, who notes that a wagon full of ground up husklage weighs only 3,000 lbs. He stores the husklage in a Harvestore silo. When he hauls it home from the field, he adds water in the silo blower to boost moisture content to about 35% "to get good fermentation. We let it ferment 21 days before we start feeding," says Manche. His present husklage collector and grinder evolved from a pilot model built in 1975. "It didn't have a hammer mill to make the feed silo-ready. Consequently, we had to run the residue through a tub grinder before blowing it into the silo. Our new home-built model eliminates this extra labor and equipment," Manthe points out. He feeds husklage silage year around to his beef cow herd, using it as his silage base: "I've never chopped silage." Manthe stores most of his feed in three silos: one for haylage, a protein source one for husklage, a roughage source; and one for high moisture corn, an energy source. "The husklage silage allows me to make any ration I want, and I don't have to make a lot of hay," explains Manthe who, until last winter, was running 135 beef cows. He has since cut back to 35. "The most exciting thing about this system is that I don't have a lot of money wrapped up in the pull-behind residue grinder and it makes dam cheap feed for a beef cow herd," says Manthe. His "junk feed" huscklage has tested close to 8% crude protein, up to 60% TDN and maintains beef cows "real weir at 15 to 181bs. per head per day, along with 5 to 6 lbs. of haylage. Manche also feeds a husklage-haylage combination to finishing cattle. For more information, contact FARM SHOW Followup, Bill Manthe, Rt. 1, Box 131 A, Lake View, Iowa 51450 (ph 712 657-2489).

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