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Texas
Agriculture Archive
May 17, 2002
Simple ideas sometimes the best
By Mike Barnett
Editor
One simple fact about the chicken business is that, well, chickens poop. And the industry has addressed that concern by inventing machines to sift through pine shavings and litter on the floor of chicken houses and remove the crusted and caked shavings from the dry shavings that can be used for the next flock. A recurring problem, however, has been what to do with accumulated cake that gathers by the chain walls of the chicken house. That caked litter and shavings needs to be removed for health reasons and disease control.
There are a few solutions here. Poultry growers can spend thousands of dollars for an expensive auger that attaches to their cake-out machines to take care of the job. They can break their backs and use a pitchfork. Or they can invest around $350 to buy Larry Hardy's simple invention that will reach over to the chain wall and rake the cake over for the cake-out machine to pick up.
This
idea has been a time and money saver for Hardy, who has 14 chicken houses
near San Augustine, and was recently one of 15 winners nationwide of inventions
that make farm chores easier in the American Farm Bureau Federation's Farmer
Idea Exchange.
When he first got into the chicken business seven years ago, Hardy was told by his poultry service man that the only way to get the cake out was to pitchfork it. It didn't take but one bout with that hand tool for Hardy to find another way.
"You're looking at 400 foot by 400 foot...800 foot times six houses (what he had at the time). You run in here, get about 40 foot down and say my goodness, I think I'll go to town and see if I can find me some extra help," Hardy recalls. "After we had grown out one batch of chickens, I'm thinking, there's got to be a better way to do this than the dad gum pitchfork."
Hardy's solution? A simple piece of metal, welded to the side of the cake-out machine, that bent out to an angle that would pull the cake away from the chain wall.
Between batches of broilers, Hardy, a member of the San Augustine County Farm Bureau, continually refined and improved his "wing" to where he is now: a patented invention that's found acceptance from growers, not only from Texas, but nationwide.
Hardy's 24-inch wing attachment is simple and easy to use, and folds out of the way when not in use. Four bolts attach the wing to a plate on commercial cake-out machines. A pin keeps the implement in place when not in use. Slits in the wing allow loose shavings to sift through back to the poultry house floor to be reused. The caked material is raked to the cake-out machine, which picks it up. Vertical rollers on the end of the wing roll along the walls of the poultry house to ensure the crusted shavings are captured.
"It's simple," Hardy says. "It's just as plain as I can tell you. But it works."
Hardy says he can clean one side of his 400-foot broiler house in about 5 minutes. He does admit, however, that using the wing takes "a little getting used to."
"You have to be a pretty decent—and I'm not the best—tractor driver," he says. "It takes a couple of times, or a couple of batches of chickens, to get used to it. After you get used to it you can let your water line guide you to know where the wing is, so that you don't have to look back all the time."
The wing found so much acceptance among local poultry growers that Hardy decided to start selling them. He has three patterns for the two main poultry cake-out machines: one for the KMC and two for the Lewis. He contracts with a local machine shop to build them.
For more information contact Larry Hardy, P.O. Box 662, San Augustine, Tex. 76972, phone 936-275-2547 or e-mail at larryhardy14@hotmail.com.
