Filling meal bags

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
I remember going with Dad to fetch a second hand one of these (one trip for the mill, one for the mixer) in the back of an A40 pick up about 60 years ago.........
1620944537803.png

.........we've still got it and it still works (y)

It's filled a bag or two since then.

(It's a Martin Markham mill and mixer, made in Stamford, Lincolnshire for those of you too young to have ever seen one).
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Rectangular mineral tub, most bags will go over the front of them and then lift and pour easy, second bag might take some practise but tip on a diamond shape so it comes over a corner and not the whole side at once or it’ll flatten the bag below
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
A hopper that can be filled with a loader/telehandler bucket.
It'll do you a lifetime.
Either this, or a large bucket with the bottom cut out. Pull bag over bucket, fill bucket with large grain shovel, lift bag with bucket, hey presto, measured amount of feed in bag.
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Feed tipped on floor and a shovel. Shifted hundreds of tonnes like that. Once you get the knack of using the (10lb) shovel 1 handed, holding the bag open in your other hand, you can bag a lot of feed pretty quickly.


Currently feeding creep pellets from a tote bag. Scoop out a mineral bucket full and tip into a feed bag to go on the bike. 2 bags every other day. It'll do just for this 1 tote, but f**k doing that every day through winter
 

Netherfield

Member
Location
West Yorkshire
I remember going with Dad to fetch a second hand one of these (one trip for the mill, one for the mixer) in the back of an A40 pick up about 60 years ago.........
View attachment 960856
.........we've still got it and it still works (y)

It's filled a bag or two since then.

(It's a Martin Markham mill and mixer, made in Stamford, Lincolnshire for those of you too young to have ever seen one).

Or Reffold mixer, half ton 1 ton and two ton models were made in Hull.
 

Bill the Bass

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
I remember going with Dad to fetch a second hand one of these (one trip for the mill, one for the mixer) in the back of an A40 pick up about 60 years ago.........
View attachment 960856
.........we've still got it and it still works (y)

It's filled a bag or two since then.

(It's a Martin Markham mill and mixer, made in Stamford, Lincolnshire for those of you too young to have ever seen one).
I must have mixed thousands of tonnes of pig feed with a set up like that, made me the man I am today, severely asthmatic with f**ked shoulders and elbows!
 
Feed tipped on floor and a shovel. Shifted hundreds of tonnes like that. Once you get the knack of using the (10lb) shovel 1 handed, holding the bag open in your other hand, you can bag a lot of feed pretty quickly.


Currently feeding creep pellets from a tote bag. Scoop out a mineral bucket full and tip into a feed bag to go on the bike. 2 bags every other day. It'll do just for this 1 tote, but fudge doing that every day through winter
Il try the old shovel, have you one with a short shaft or just a normal shovel?
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Il try the old shovel, have you one with a short shaft or just a normal shovel?

It's a normal shovel.

Hold the shank as close to the 'head' as is comfortable with you're forearm lying on top of (running up) the shank. Shove into the feeding and lift. The weight of the feed pushes the shank against your arm and you can hold and manipulate the shovel with your wrist leaving your other hand free.
Lie the bag on the ground, hold the top open in you're free hand...

You soon get the hang of it bagging up 1t a day like I did when I first left school 🤣
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
I reckon you could make something like this from a grain shovel ?
Screenshot_20210514-184221_Google.jpg

Excuse the source of the link, just 1st image I found that was what I had in mind.
 

Chimera

Member
Location
North Wales
I've also bagged up hundreds of tonnes of bulk over the years....but bugger that now!! On the verge of buying a snacker for feeding calves at grass. Have been on bags, but at £40/t extra it's too much. Got a blend bin in the yard for filling handler bucket, but the chute's too high, and the fudging open bags always fall over anyway and fill the back of the pickup.
 
Easier to simply allow the meal to heap up and then 7 sweeps with your outstretched hand straight into a bag laid flat and held open with the other hand.

Knew a farmer who had done this for years and ended up with an 11 inch handspan.
Yes, if I have a heap of feeding that has to be bagged by hand, I just scoop it by hand into a bag, it will be filled in seconds.
A bucket or shovel it too awkward and slow imo.
 

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