100 Manure Spreader Question

[Gary Dotson]

I’m thinking the chain an be removed from the beater bar, giving you controlled drop onto your beds. Seems like a solid idea to me.

[jasondepinto]

If I understand the manual correctly, one of the levers on the front turns on the beaters, and the other turns on the floor. I feel like the beaters might serve some purpose, breaking up the larger clumps, and making for a more even spread...but the auger at the back seems like it would pitch it everywhere. I've never seen one of these up close, and have only observed them in action on the handful of videos that exist on YouTube. But I feel like I could make it work for my application, and, it would just be cool to have another Cub attachment!

[Bob McCarty]

I’m thinking the chain an be removed from the beater bar, giving you controlled drop onto your beds. Seems like a solid idea to me.

The apron chain is also on a notched quadrant and you can control the speed/amount at which the contents are pushed out the back.

[Jim Becker]

As everyone has concluded, the width of the spreader doesn't play well with your bed dimensions. The rub is the 66" overall width doesn't fit within one bed plus two paths. In numbers, 66 is more than 14+30+14. I don't think there is much opportunity to narrow the spreader. If there was extra space inside the tires, it would have been built more narrow to begin with. You might gain a little by going to narrower tires then pulling them in a bit. How much can you adjust your bed sizes, at least on the new ground? Would 15+36+15 work? How about 20+26+20? Is it even a problem if the spreader runs over 4 inches on the edge of each adjacent bed? Don't you need to do some reforming to keep the beds in shape each year anyway?

If I understand the manual correctly, one of the levers on the front turns on the beaters, and the other turns on the floor. I feel like the beaters might serve some purpose, breaking up the larger clumps, and making for a more even spread...but the auger at the back seems like it would pitch it everywhere. . . .

You are correctly reading the manual. You definitely need the beaters to break up the material and spread it evenly. The purpose of the spiral is to pitch it everywhere. If you want the spreader to put down a band of material, you can take the drive chain off the spiral, although it would be better to remove it completely. (We did that to a couple spreaders so they wouldn't fling material on the vines in a vineyard.) Maybe you could flip the spirals to pull material toward the center of the bed, as I'm sure the material will cover an area more than 30 inches across, even without the spiral.

[jasondepinto]

To clarify a bit, 14" paths are what we chose to maximize the amount of beds we could fit into a 1/4 acre plot. Having more room to work with on a 5 acre plot, I can make the beds/paths as wide as I need, to accommodate the Cub, and possibly the spreader and/or cultivators, doing more of the work for me. Wider beds and paths are completely possible, although a lot of our spacings and yield expectation calculations are based off of 100' 30" beds. Not running over adjacent beds is fairly important, as that leads to compaction, and we operate with a minimum to no-till sort of practice. Thank you for everyone's input. I'll be using this information, visiting the spreader tomorrow, and formulating a plan.

[Crimson Tim]

If ground clearance is not an issue, you might look into the little spreaders made for lawn tractors: Newer Spreader is one. Tarter I think is another. I have an older Newer, if I can say that. They drizzle a very even curtain of “product” across their entire width right from the bottom. No flinging. I want to say they are just slightly over 48” wide outside to outside, so if your Cub is set narrow, it will be pretty close to following in your tire tracks.


Pros:
- easy to maneuver by hand (empty)
- Cub is more than ample to pull it.
- works great for manure bedded on shavings.

Cons:
- only sits a couple inches above the ground
- capacity is small—probably two wheelbarrows-worth. RK says 13 cu ft, which sounds about right. I think a wheelbarrow is supposed to be 6 cu ft.
- doesn’t work so well for particularly dense material or stringy material. It will choke trying to spread soil, compost, or manure bedded on straw.
- most importantly, it’s not a sweet antique Willy-wonky-esque contraption like a 100 is.

Here’s the Tarter at rural king:
https://www.ruralking.com/tarter-compac ... gAQAvD_BwE

[Jim Becker]

Tom's post made me think of one more comment. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to design a multi-acre operation around the dimensions of one 60-year old implement with hard to find parts. I think the Tarter suggestion isn't adequate, but there are others that would work well. Here is one with capacities and dimensions that seem to be a good fit:
https://loyal-roth.com/products/atv-manure-spreaders/pricelist-manure-spreader.php
I don't know anything good or bad about this particular machine. But it looks like a good fit.

[Peter Person]

Jason,
That plot looks great! Lots of work but the results are worth it.
We finally downsized our vegetable garden last fall from 30' x 60' to 25' x 45'. Still had excess produce at times. Not as many mouths to feed anymore.
Our oldest son Erik, and his wife started a fresh garden this spring that is 40' x 90'. They included corn in their plot, so needed the larger area.

Your little guy will get the hang of it. Give him a small area where he can have his own garden and watch his eyes sparkle as things start growing. We did it with pumpkins.

Peter

[jasondepinto]

Tom's post made me think of one more comment. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to design a multi-acre operation around the dimensions of one 60-year old implement with hard to find parts. I think the Tarter suggestion isn't adequate, but there are others that would work well. Here is one with capacities and dimensions that seem to be a good fit:
https://loyal-roth.com/products/atv-manure-spreaders/pricelist-manure-spreader.php
I don't know anything good or bad about this particular machine. But it looks like a good fit.

Thanks for the suggestion Jim. If the spreader was something I'd be using on a daily basis, yes, I would be hesitant to base plans and dimensions on an implement that old, with little to no parts available. As we would only be using this for initial formation of the beds, and to add a small amount of compost in future years, I feel like it would be viable. The bed/path dimensions matter more to me in terms of the Cub being able to straddle though, as using cultivators would be a real time, and back saver. I have seen that Loyal spreader, and the seller of the 100 also has a Mill Creek 25 Bushel for me to look at. Of course, I'd rather keep it in the Farmall family, but ultimately, I need what is best for the intended function. Thanks again for the advice.

[jasondepinto]

Jason,
That plot looks great! Lots of work but the results are worth it.
We finally downsized our vegetable garden last fall from 30' x 60' to 25' x 45'. Still had excess produce at times. Not as many mouths to feed anymore.
Our oldest son Erik, and his wife started a fresh garden this spring that is 40' x 90'. They included corn in their plot, so needed the larger area.

Your little guy will get the hang of it. Give him a small area where he can have his own garden and watch his eyes sparkle as things start growing. We did it with pumpkins.

Peter

Thanks Peter! The garden was 20 X 30 before we blew it out to the 1/4 acre plot. We ran a 30 family CSA out of this plot this last year, over the course of 20 weeks! We also ate like kings, and STILL had excess to sell at a roadside stand. When the opportunity arose to take on a 5 acre field adjacent to our property, we jumped. We will be expanding the CSA sales next year, as well as planting larger plots of corn, pumpkins, and cover crop to rotate into the following year. Our 5 year old is very much into it. She can tell you how long things take to germination, and is the official farm tour guide whenever we have visitors. My little guy? He's a good helper when it comes to turning wrenches. My guess is he will be flipping Cubs like your boys in just a few years!

[jasondepinto]

Well, I decided it was worth a shot. Just couldn't resist another Cub implement! This thing is neat...it's kind of like a Rube Goldberg machine!

[Don McCombs]

You can bring it to Cubfest Northeast next year. It may be useful.

[Barnyard]

You can bring it to Cubfest Northeast next year. It may be useful.

What are you trying to say, Don?

[Don McCombs]

Sometimes the by-products from the war stories can get quite deep.

[Dusty B]

Depends on how much compost you want to spread? You can not engage the beaters and just flow the compost out of the bed with the chain! Might need to build shields to narrow the spreader box down to 30” but I think it would be doable!