Manure pulverizer

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I have a garden mulcher which is supposed to chop up green branches into mulch. It's not much use but I tried it the other day with some dry cow pats we got from a stockyard. It certainly munched them up real fine, ideal for the garden but it was really slow and blocked easily.My plan is to make a hopper and chute for it and work my way thru the trailer load.Has anyone built one? Any ideas or tips on what does or doesn't work would be appreciated.Clive
Reply:If it doesn't have a hopper on it there probably a reason for it not having one [cant take that much loading] and you will probably only succeed in over loading it and having even more issues with the machine if not total failure, and possible injury. So be careful with this idea....Miller Thunderbolt 225Millermatic 130 XPLincoln HD 100 Forney C-5bt Arc welderPlasma Cutter Gianteach Cut40ACent Machinery Bandsaw Cent Machinery 16Speed Drill PressChicago Electric 130amp tig/90 ArcHobart 190 Mig spoolgun ready
Reply:why chop up the maure? once earthworms get into it it won't matter much.As for something helpfull i agree with STwelder, it doesn't sound like the machine is up to the task and a hopper would cause it to jam more. If you did use a hopper consider using something to breakup the feed going in so the machine can keep up (like the hoppers for paintball guns that vibrate to keep the balls from jaming)... i'm not sure how to accomplish this with ease.
Reply:got any pics? i would say a bigger engine on it, but there is a reason why the engineer's didn;t put one on there in the first place (the other part's won;t handle it probably). it is hard to say what their design factor is on it. if you have one, i would say to just lay the poo and turn it in with a tiller. as far as using your mulcher though, i think that if you could break the chunks into smaller cow pies before inserting them into the hopper, it may help a bit. try placing a few straps or spikes into the hopper before it hits the actual intake area of the hopper and they should break themselves apart fairly easily. have you tried running water though the mulcher with the poo? don;t try it if the unit isn't water tight or you have your doubts, but the water should soften the turds a bit. one of the many pieces of useless information from the midwest. lolLater,Andy
Reply:If you focus and main reason for the chute is old dry cow manure, leaves and other light dry material, go for it. I can't imagine neeeding a whole lot of horse power for to grind up a buffalo chip. Those things are so light they won't hardly feed themselves by weight. Make it a bolt on affair. Make it out of pretty light material.
Reply:i'd think a bunch of cow pie would break up nice with a garden fork..
Reply:Most of the manure spreaders I've seen have some sort of rotating flinger to breakup and toss the stuff off the back. I would think that the hopper idea should work as long as you can keep the pieces from being to large when it goes in.I've read this thread about 8 times and I just have to ask this question. So what you're telling us is the you have a load of BS and you want to spread it around. So of course you look to the internet! Where else can a person learn to spread BS and get it out as fast as possible! Good luck and have fun with your garden.
Reply:I'll try to answer all the questions,First we don't have earthworms, we are desert and can go for a couple of years without any rain, the ground is incredibly compacted sand and spades bounce off it plus for 8 months of the year we have temperatures 100oF to 125oF so that's why no worms.The mulcher is designed with a small throat for shrubbery with a hole on the top you poke small branches through. With this removed it is still a small opening onto the blade, smaller than the cow pats, some of which are the size of a plate and fairly hard. I'f they are broken down small enough to go through the opening the machine turns them into grain sized particles with ease. So I know the motor will handle the poo I just have to make a frame and chute/hopper/whatever to go round it.And yes I do have a load of BS I want to spread round, basically you could say I'm full of it.Clive
Reply:When i was a kid living in Hershey, I watched  couple guys make topsoil for the rose garden.  They just shoveled dirt. cow pucks and mulched leaves into an old peanut blancher.A blancher is just a very fast short, conveyor with a metal toothed belt that peels the inner skin off the peanut. (google it)
Reply:Originally Posted by cliveI'll try to answer all the questions,First we don't have earthworms, we are desert and can go for a couple of years without any rain, the ground is incredibly compacted sand and spades bounce off it plus for 8 months of the year we have temperatures 100oF to 125oF so that's why no worms.The mulcher is designed with a small throat for shrubbery with a hole on the top you poke small branches through. With this removed it is still a small opening onto the blade, smaller than the cow pats, some of which are the size of a plate and fairly hard. I'f they are broken down small enough to go through the opening the machine turns them into grain sized particles with ease. So I know the motor will handle the poo I just have to make a frame and chute/hopper/whatever to go round it.And yes I do have a load of BS I want to spread round, basically you could say I'm full of it.Clive
Reply:Maybe you could use an old lawnmower upside down kind of like a tub grinder to chop the patties into pieces before they fall into the hopper you're  talking about.
Reply:Don't try a mower upside down, unless you really want to see what happens when the "poo hits the fan"!!"One of the things we have to be thankful for is that we don't get as much government as we pay for." (Charles Kettering)Mitch 180 (NZ)Lincoln SAM-400-220 + ?-400 Fordson Major + 2 x Tractapac Humber 80 + Procut 40 PlasmaMiller Spectrum 375
Reply:I made an offset cone for it on Thursday and will make the flange to bolt it on when I go back to work on Monday so it's poo grinding week this week.
Reply:Originally Posted by jjsjeffMaybe you could use an old lawnmower upside down kind of like a tub grinder to chop the patties into pieces before they fall into the hopper you're  talking about.