Grinding Grain for Animal Feed

[two_barking_dogs]

Hey, I'm looking for a Mill to grind/crack grain for animal feed, mainly for my chickens. I'm having trouble finding something to use on my small farm. The volumes I figure I'd grind are about 5 lbs every other day. I want something somewhat heavy duty. I found this which looks like what small farms used in the early 1900's

http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Bentall1.htm

I really like this or something similar so where would one go about finding something like this for sale. I've been checking the Farmers Market bulletin here in Ga for the last month or so and havn't seen anything come up for sale. I'd take new or used. Any ideas.

Mike

 

[BubbaJr]

Here's another option.

Lehman's Hardware


I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

 

[Schultz]

You can always build your own. As you know with chickens your not trying to make flower, just more less crack the grain so they can fully digest it. The mill pictured I think would produce flour without just the rollers in it.
If you’re really into it, I can take some pictures of my homemade grain mill that I use for home brewing. I have occasionally used it to make feed for my chickens from left over beer grain, but only barley & wheat. I imagine it would crack corn, but it might require resetting the roller gap.
I made the rollers out of solid stock and knurled them. An easier way might be to use 3 or 4" steel pipe and weld end caps on them. My two rollers are 3.5", one is driven by a 1/2hp 1150-rpm motor that is reduced to have a roller speed of about 100rpm. The other just freewheels on it's bearings. The hopper is about 15 gal and has what I call a throat plate to limit/meter the grain to the rollers when its running.
Tim

 

[cowboydoc]

Why not just buy cracked corn? It's available bagged or by the pickup or truck load.

 

[two_barking_dogs]

Schultz - I have looked at homebrew mills and at the moment they are at the top of my list on what to get. However I am a little concerned that they are not of a production strength. In feed grains you sometimes find small rocks and I'm concerned that homebrew mills wouldn't last for long. Thus the desire to buy something that was actually built to grind grain for feed. Thanks for the offer to post pictures but I've seen several homebrew mills and think I could build myself a roller mill. Althou I would be interested in how you knurled the rollers if you don't mind describing how you did that.

cowboydoc - Yes I could buy cracked grain which is what I'm currently doing. But for 2 reasons: 1) once the grain is cracked the nuturent value starts going down and feed store cracked corn may be months old by the time you use it. better to store whole grain and crack as needed 2) I want to crack the grain myself. I bought this farm to have fun and yes sometimes I don't do things the easy way but for the same reason I bought a $20k tractor to FEL and bushhog when I could hire it out, I raise chickens/garden when I could buy them in the store, I want to spend mult hundreds of dollars on equipment to save a few dollars on the price of feed. Plus someday I'll be planting the lower 5 acre field in corn/wheat so I won't be able to crack it if I don't have the equipment in place. When I get around to that I'll be asking about corn shellers and planter/plows.

Thanks, Mike

 

[Schultz]

Most of the machining work was done at work on luch hours and after hours. 1st step: befreind all in the machine shop, if you don't already work in one. Since I never asked anyone to do it for me, most machinest didn't mind teaching me how to do things as long as I wasn't in there way, especally if your willing to bring in a 12 pack of good homebrew for them. So over the year's I've learned how to run all but the programable equipment in the machine shop.
Anyway, I made the rollers on a metal lathe. Once the rollers were made to the size I wanted with the shaft stubs on the ends. I rechucked the roller on one of the shaft stubs and the other side on a live center. At a low speed I walked a knurling tool across the face of the roller. I choose the standard diamond pattern.

 

[Egon]

Two and a half pounds of cracked grain a day. No big deal, I've got grinder in the basement that will do the job no problem. It's hand cranked and I've spent many a youthfull hour cranking it to grind oats for the chickens.

There will be numerous small electric grinders that will handle 2-1/2 pounds of feed a day. They will be adjustable and could even produce flour quality grindings.

Of course an ox driving a grindstone mill will also work. Waterwheels and windmills have also been used to provide the energy for grinding.

If you are really serious about doing it yourself there should be information on a hand operated stone mill. I've also got one of those.

Egon

 

[cowboydoc]

Sure I understand. No offense intended. Some people aren't aware you can buy it that way. Alot of times you can find those old grinders pretty cheap at farm auctions. Or you can find a pto grinder mixer for less than the cost of one of these other ones.

 

[ronjhall]

Mike
When we had chickens I used my hammer mill type shredder with a ¼ screen in it to crack corn. Made a box to collect the cracked corn under the shredder. Also made a plate for top of feed chute to control how much corn was fed into shredder. The unit I have is an older Mighty Mac.

 

[ejb]

>>I bought this farm to have fun and yes sometimes I don't do things the easy way but ...

Reminds me of a joke I read a while back (maybe even here?).

A farmer plays the lottery and wins the jackpot of $5 Million dollars...the reporter asks him "what are you going to do with all the money?" to which he replies..."I'll just keep on farming until the moneys all gone I guess..." /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif