OldMcDonald
Platinum Member
Brad, I have had problems before in saying things to folks in the US - my English is different to US English, but be assured I mean absolutely no offence.
I have been farming around the world for several decades on places ranging from very large to small. There are no combines probably within 100 miles of me. In the 10 years I have been here I have never seen one closer. I feed corn to the goats in troughs inside their night shed (it is necessary to house all stock at nights because of predation) and anything they pull out and drop, which they would with whole cobs, is not eaten. One of the reasons I keep goats is that they eat the prunings from my 500 olive trees. These prunings otherwise need to be burnt because of disease organisms that would live in them, and to me that is just a waste. Far better to produce FYM after they have been eaten.
Charlz, The inside of that shredder, and it is a good size, reminds me of the working part of a garden rotavator, and that gives me a couple of ideas for the possibility of making a sheller. Or rather for busting up the cobs. Rotavate them. It probably means a bit of experimentation with tines and revolution speed, and possibly making swinging hammers to replace the tines, but that should not be too difficult, nor making a box for it to work in. Most folks would be shelling at times of the year when they would not want to be rotavating the garden so it extends the use of the machine that would only be sitting idle.
I have also just remembered seeing a sheller that looked like the barrel of a cannon, guessing now but maybe 4 or 5 feet long. It was maybe 5 or 6 years ago on the net, and I do not know where. Do you know of such a machine?
I have been farming around the world for several decades on places ranging from very large to small. There are no combines probably within 100 miles of me. In the 10 years I have been here I have never seen one closer. I feed corn to the goats in troughs inside their night shed (it is necessary to house all stock at nights because of predation) and anything they pull out and drop, which they would with whole cobs, is not eaten. One of the reasons I keep goats is that they eat the prunings from my 500 olive trees. These prunings otherwise need to be burnt because of disease organisms that would live in them, and to me that is just a waste. Far better to produce FYM after they have been eaten.
Charlz, The inside of that shredder, and it is a good size, reminds me of the working part of a garden rotavator, and that gives me a couple of ideas for the possibility of making a sheller. Or rather for busting up the cobs. Rotavate them. It probably means a bit of experimentation with tines and revolution speed, and possibly making swinging hammers to replace the tines, but that should not be too difficult, nor making a box for it to work in. Most folks would be shelling at times of the year when they would not want to be rotavating the garden so it extends the use of the machine that would only be sitting idle.
I have also just remembered seeing a sheller that looked like the barrel of a cannon, guessing now but maybe 4 or 5 feet long. It was maybe 5 or 6 years ago on the net, and I do not know where. Do you know of such a machine?