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Callao, Missouri | My dad (Ben) has the bale bed, but no feeder. My truck (the 02 Dodge Cummins) has the feeder, but no bale bed. I would like to find one of the deweze slide on units for flat beds so I would have both on my truck.
I feed ddg's by mixing it with between 1/2 to 1/3 of corn. I did this by putting the corn in the front half of our seed gravity wagon, and ddg's in the back half. The seed auger is ran from hydraulics, which I have on my truck. I just open the slides on the door to the approx. mixture that I want. It works fairly well.
My feeder will not handle DDG's without something mixed in. If it had a bigger auger/motor, and some sort of agitator/vibrator, it would be fine. My feeder doesn't have the typical discharge shoot, as DDG dust blows everywhere. I used about 2/3 of an intertube attached with to a leafblower tube (about 4" wide). This gets the feed within 2' of the ground (so I can still fill buckets if I need to) and will give if a cow hits it, or I drive too close to a gate post.
I have seen feeders in KS that have a square viewing area cut through the center so you can still look back there to hookup trailers, etc. My feeder is solid, so I get to play the game of jumping out of the truck 5 times to get hooked up. My feeder is also so wide that I can't pull trailers with the normal gooseneck ball, I had to add another ball box about 2' behind the original. For big loads, I take the feeder back off and use the front ball.
Ultimately, I would like to have something like a Toyota pickup with a smaller version of a bale bed. If I feed DDG's with corn gluten pellets, it will be pretty light, and I'd just use little bales when the occasion arises. We are trying to move away from feeding hay altogether.
I'm tired of rutting up the pastures with that dang 1 ton diesel, when a little beater pickup could do a better job. I'll burn 28 gl a week of diesel just doing chores and running around. There has to be a better way.
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Bale bed and feed box question.
