Coyote Ridge FarmsWelcome To Our Rural Blog

Recently, a local farmer had his retirement sale.  The auction was an online auction.  These types of sales are becoming more and more popular in our area, but are still relatively new.  Unfortunately for us, Carol and I had a meeting to attend when the auction was due to end.  There were several pieces of machinery we were interested in, so we put in our maximum bids and hoped for the best.

When we arrived home after the meeting, I was sure to check the closed auction.  We had the winning bid on only one item – a Farmhand Feedmaster mixer/mill.  The website showed our winning bid at $327.33.  This in itself was odd.  Odd because that was our exact maximum bid.  When I looked at the online bid history, things didn’t add-up.  It indicated I was outbid by myself, but still had the top bid… hmmm.  The next day, I called the auction’s tech. support and reported the error.  A few minutes later I received a call back.  Yep!  There was a problem.  Instead of the a winning bid of $320+, we ended up getting the feed mill for $155.  I could get at least that much for the mill if I sold it for scrap iron.  We got lucky on this buy.

Our new mixer mill

Today, I faxed the payment to the auctioneer’s office and headed out to get the mixer.  Once there, I was able to hook-up to the mill easily.  Off I headed.  It towed as it should have and best of all, no flat tires.  When I got back home, I did a little maintenance by simply greasing all the zerks.  Soon after that, I hooked the tractor to the mill and gave it a spin.  It is a sound piece of equipment.  Everything worked.  The bonus is that the hammers of the mill are like new.  As you can plainly see in the below pic, these have yet to be turned.

These are like new hammers

This new [to us] mixer mill now allows us the ability to produce our own feeds.  Over the last year, we have been looking for affordable soy-free, GMO-free custom feeds.  With this mixer/mill, we can now grind our own grains.  Since we’re Certified Organic, we know our future feed will be soy and GMO-free as well as potentially corn-free.  The trend lately is to substitute corn with wheat.  Wheat is now cheaper than corn (or is most of the time), thus making wheat a cheaper AND healthier feed alternative.  Corn is corn, but wheat is a grass.

Don’t get me wrong, we are not anti-corn, I’m just pro-grass.  I think corn is OK for [maybe] hogs and poultry, but… small grain is better.  For ruminants, like cattle, goats and sheep, grasses are healthier.  Small grains like oats, wheat, and barley are, in fact, grasses.

These 4 screens are in great shape

We are lucky, the mill came with 4 screens.  It’s been decades since I’ve ground feed.  I will need to become acquainted with screen size and their intended use(s).  I wonder if I can grind hay with this.  If I can, that’ll be a huge.  We’re big believers in feeding hay or forage to all animals.  A well balanced and natural feed program is thought to do more than just increase an animal’s size, it keeps them healthy.  Our thoughts are that forage and grasses are necessary for that to happen.

Related posts:

1. Madison's Experiment