Portable Feeders Built Out of Trucks, Wagons

Portable Feeders Built Out of Trucks, Wagons HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 19-5-11 You can make handy portable hay feeders out of old truck and farm wagon chassis, says a Florida cattleman. "I only have to feed my 700 head of cattle twice a week thanks to these big, easy to handle feeders," says Ellis W. Hitzing of Jacksonville. "If I were putting bales on the ground, I'd have to feed them every day." Hitzing started making the portable hay feeders five or six years ago. He now has eight ranging in capacity from three to eight bales. He used the frames and axles off old Ford and Allis-Chalmers farm wagons to make the two smallest feeders and converted trucks ranging in size from 1 to 4 tons to build the biggest units. Hitzing makes racks to fit the rolling feeders out of 2-in. angle iron, but says pipe or other metal would work, too. He makes the U-shaped racks wide enough and high enough to handle the 1,250-lb. bales his New Holland baler turns out. He makes tongues out of 3-in. pipe and mounts a 2 5/16-in. trailer ball hitch on back to pull more than one wagon at a time. Hitzing loads bales into the racks with a set of old forks mounted on the bucket on his Ford 5000 tractor. "You can just drop them off wherever you want to feed certain bunches of cattle," he says. "Cattle eat from underneath and water still runs off so there's very little waste." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ellis W. Hitzing, EWH Ranch, P.O. Box 3217, Jacksonville, Ha. 32206 (ph 904-353-0962; fax 3032).

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