One thing about this country, when it decides to change the weather, it isn’t fooling around! Wow! As I write this, it is still pretty cold and from what I read it has slipped clear down south and them folks are getting a taste of what we usually face every winter. Oh well, fair is fair, we get a taste every summer that they get then!
I saw a video a year or so back of a rig to feed grain and cubes to livestock. Made from a wide tired and the center where the rim would be, blocked, with iron or steel and a pipe thru’ the middle. It hooks up to a bale unroller and there is a small door to load it with. To use it you just set it down and drive along and as the wheel turns it spills out cubes or grain when the hole gets to the bottom and then quits dropping any out, as the hole rotates to the top again. It looked pretty slick so we made one.
We found a fairly wide tire and about 3 and a half feet tall. We cut a fairly large flap that you push down inside and block open to put the feed into the tire. In side that flap we cut a smaller hole for the grain to come out of. After you finish filling your grain, you pull the flap up and closed and it will stay shut. It works as slick as I thought it would. My son, Chance has no faith in any ideas I come up with so he was skeptical if it would work and reserved judgement until he saw it for himself. After seeing how well it worked, he even gave me credit for a good thing we could make ourselves!
We have been using it last winter and this winter and the only thing we would do different is use a wider tire. I was out feeding with it this morning and watching the cows come to feed. There are several that run along and try and take a bite on the run, and not really getting much to eat. The rest just calmly stay at a pile and eat at it until it is gone. Then move on to another pile. Until all the feed is gone.
It seems to me, the ones who stay calm and just go about their business, so to speak, get more and at a much easier rate. The ones who run along trying to get the most, probably don’t.
Kind of reminds me of some people and how they go thru’ life. Some just keep at the job at hand, calmly and stay with it, working steadily. Others are always running to the next pile, thinking they are get more.
People are funny critters, as Baxter Black observed. Hope by the time you read this it is much warm
Dennisranch 