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Apparatus for Mechanically Feeding Forages to Individual Animals at Preset Intervals¹

Departments of Agricultural Engineering and Dairy Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison

ABSTRACT

Recently, there has been considerable interest in the frequent feeding of farm animals, especially ruminants. Research has been limited, in part, by the lack of a simple, reliable means of feeding individual animals at frequent intervals, e.g., every 2 or 3 hr. The apparatus described herein was successfully used to feed cows at 3- or 6-hr intervals and the results of this experiment have been published (1).

Description of apparatus. The dispensing unit (Figure 1) consists of a rather large round metal bin with seven equal-sized segmented compartments. Bin dimensions are 30 in. high, 30 in. in diameter at the base, and 27 in. in diameter at the top. The bin is mounted on a vertical shaft set in ball-bearings and is driven by an electric motor through a gear reduction box and a ratchet drive at about one-half revolution per minute.

The bottom of the bin consists of a circular plywood disk 34 in. in diameter, from which a portion has been cut so as to match the segmented compartments.

¹ Published with the approval of the Director of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station.