Beef
Adams
Land & Cattle Co. - Broken Bow, NE
After seeing a demo, a Brown Bear 500 was immediately purchased and put to work
drying the pens of Adams Land & Cattle Co. during "the wet spring of
93." Adams Cattle Co. is also using their composted manure for fertilizer.
"We'll dry it from 80% moisture to 25% moisture, then spread it on our own
agricultural land," explains Gary Kenel, supervisor.
As with all cattle producers, Bill Adams is very concerned with his rate of
gain. "Increased cattle comfort means increased gain. If they have to
fight mud, it just eats you alive; it's unbelievable. We've seen a 1/10 pound
per day gain. You do all you can for cattle comfort because that will pay back
to you in big dividends."
Double
MM Farms - Kearney,
NE
Double MM Farms has a small 2500 head commercial beef cattle feedlot and
several thousand irrigated row crop acres. They have been using co-compost
generated from the manure out of their feedlot and the waste water sludge from
the nearby Kearney WWTP, to supplement commercial fertilizers on their crop
acres. The manure and sludge is mixed, blended and composted by Mercers, using
a Brown Bear I compost machine. The dry, granulated end product is spread on
the farmland using a dry box spreader.
Cold
Springs Dairy Farm – Hanover, IL
Maintaining milk production on a Midwest
drylot dairy farm is very difficult during the muddy season when the
combination of melting snow, ice and rain contribute to muddy lots, which in
turn stresses the animals. Scraping the lots helps keep the cattle out of the
mud, but creates masses of wet manure that crusts over and will not dry out in
the pen. Hauling the manure out of the pen increases open pen space but creates
a mass of non-drying manure that will not pile and covers many acres. To solve
the problem, Cold Springs Dairy has started composting their piled manure with
a Brown Bear PTOPA35-10.5 attachment on a New Holland TV-140 farm tractor.
Composting reduces the volume by two-thirds and kills the seed germination and
pathogens in the manure, making it more valuable for application back on their
cropland (corn yields progressed from 80 bpa to an average of 180 bpa). The PTO auger aerator delivers a second major
benefit in bed clearing – the consistent pickup of manure at its shear point
with the clay below, which greatly reduced clay-replacement costs and improved
overall cattle health and weight gains.
Cold Springs Dairy Farm’s success with the Brown Bear auger
aerator spurred a veteran Illinois county agricultural agent to state, “The Brown Bear is the
only aerator composter we know of that builds its own initial windrows. Since it always works directly in line with
windrowed materials, it requires no alleyways.
Existing space is better utilized, mixing is more thorough, and the
compost produced is of very high quality.
We feel confident in recommending this type of aerator compactor to all
serious beef producers, small, mid-sized or big.”