3-Pt. Picker Perfect For Plot Bait

3-Pt. Picker Perfect For Plot Bait CORN PICKERS Corn Pickers (11D) 31-2-11 Corn for deer feeding plots doesn't have to be clean. It doesn't have to have whole kernels. And you sure don't need a $300,000 combine to harvest it. "I had a five-row corn head and a grain table off a Gleaner M3," says Mooring. "I decided to build a 3-pt. mounted, one-row snapper head out of it." He used two snouts and a single row unit from the corn head and mounted it on one side of a 2-wheeled axle he took off an old feed wagon that attaches to a 3-pt. hitch. "I can tow it on the wheels and pick at that ground level or use the 3-pt. hitch to raise it to ear height," says Mooring. "A hydraulic top link on the 3-pt. lets me adjust the snapper head angle." A pto drive unit powers everything but the auger. When corn comes off the header, it lands on a kicker wheel that pushes it back into a trough. As the corn drops, air from a fan mounted to the side of the trough hits it, blowing away most of the loose trash. The trough funnels the corn down to an auger that screws the corn up and into a trailing cart. If the auger grinds up the ears a little, it doesn't matter, given its end use. "The auger came off the combine's grain tank and is powered by a hydraulic motor," says Mooring. "When I come to the end of the row, I just shut off the auger until I finish turning around." A hydraulic cylinder on the auger lets him adjust it to clear the cart as he lifts and lowers the header. "I use it to pick for the neighbors," says Mooring. The only problem is that he has to run down a row when getting into a field. He is now in the process of building a mounted 2-row snapper head that will let him pull into a field and pick anywhere without running down any corn. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Johnny Mooring, P.O. Box 163, Snow Hill, N.C. 28580 (ph 252 747-8772).

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