AlB— Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 28,1981
New semi-solid manure handling equipment makes job easy
FLEETWOOD - Showing just
how easy it is to empty a pit-full of
semi-liquid manure was the
purpose of an Open House spon
sored by Headland-Martin Inc. at
the farm of Joseph and David Ruth
on Tuesday.
Farmers, who took some time
away from the plow or this
beautiful Spring day, watched as a
‘new’ manure handler, called the
Equalizer, “inhaled” the slurry
and pumped it mto a 167 bushel
(struck level) spreader, known as
the Martin Scavenger 1466, filling
it in exactly P/z minutes.
According to local dealer Joel
Yorgy, the Equalizer efficiently
loads semi-solid manure
manure that’s too thick to pump
and too thin to bucket He ex
plained when bucket loaders are
used to clean out semi-solid
manure from holding pits, farmers
spend too much time “chasing”
the manure.
Mervin Martin of Myerstown,
who created this manure handling
equipment, claims his manufac
turing company is the only one to
address the problems of handling
semi-sohd manure.
He said the Equalizer has been
on the market for a year, and has
found homes on about 50 farms in
Pennsylvania, New York and the
New England states. The creation
of this breakthrough for loading
“sloppy” manure took three years,
he explained.
Martin recalled how he saw the
Md. cattlemen to meet
MT AIRY, Md. The Maryland
Cattlemen’s Association will hold
their Annual Meeting and Election
of Officers April 2, 6 p m., at the
Mount Airy Fireman’s Activities
Building in Mt. Airy, Maryland on
Rt 27 just off 1-70
Dinner will be served at 6 30
p m , advance reservation
required
The program will feature A 1
GROUND PLANE
It could cut some pesticide cost 50% or more!
i '•
' * N
' *
need for semi-solid manure han
dling equipment back in 1977
“All the equipment on the
market from the other companies
were ‘me-too’s’ that is,
everybody else had the same types
of equipment
The Equalizer enables the
farmer to handle the biggest range
of manure with one piece of
equipment. It can handle anything
from liquid to dry pack from box
stalls ”
The Equalizer, which presently
costs about $5300, fits on any
tractor with HP’s of 60-85
Martin pomted out the Agway
Research Farm in New York owns
and has tested his piece of
machinery.
“Although it’s not in writing yet,
they’ve found the Equalizer to be
the most fuel efficient manure
handling system on the market
today,” he boasted “It eliminates
agitation pumps used m other
systems, and also the need to run a
tractor continuously to keep the
manure stirred up And, with our
equipment, there’s no need to add
extra water in order to pump the
manure.”
Martin said the Agway farm
tested the Equalizer on a pit
holding the manure of over 100
cows. He said the study showed a
65 HP tractor used only 15 gallons
of fuel to empty the pit.
“If you take those 15 gallons and
apply it to a pumping-agitation
system, it would allow only 2 hours
Evans who is associated with the
Maryland Food Producers. Evans
will offer ideas and suggestions to
help the Cattlemen’s Association
with their new beef promotion
project
All interested persons are in
vited to attend To make dinner
reservations call 301/489-4519
before March 29.
With Mervin Martin at the throttle, the latest
in semi-solid manure handling equipment,
called the Equalizer, ‘chews’ into the pitfuf of
manure at Vista Grande Farm, located near
Fleetwood in Berks County. Martin, who
developed the Equalizer specifically for han
worth of pumping. To empty the
pit, it would take five-tunes the
fuel,” said Martin.
Along with the Equalizer, Martin
has developed two manure
spreaders. The spreader known as
the V Model has recently been
patented, he said, the other, known
as the Scavenger, will be patented
W*- W
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hTSmL. productive herd, florin
m - 'fW%W Enriched Dairy Feeds are
/v Gdß<r scientifically formulated,
t tested and proven. Feed it
(fcJj’WMLy regularly, and see the
results...more milk from
cows, more money for you.
dling ‘sloppy’ manure, pumps the semi-solid
waste from Joe and Dave Ruth’s dairy oper
ation into another Martin creation, a spreader
called the Scavenger. Filling the 167 bushel
spreader took only 1 Vi minutes.
in the future
In its first year on the market,
the Scavenger has been sold to 250
farmers, Martin said, with an
average cost of |9OOO The V Model,
available since 1977, has an
average list price of $7OOO, with
about 450 models sold to date
Martin said he’s optomistic
WHATEVER
HERD YOU HAVE
DAIRY FEEDS
TO YOUR HERD
TO MAKE MILK AND MONEY
WOLOEMUTH BROS., INC.
MOUNT JOY, PA
PH: 717-653-1451
about this year’s sales volume and
anticipates a combined sales of 500
units
For more information on the
manure handling equipment
contact Carl Just, sales manager,
Headland-Martin Inc., 841 Kutz
town Road, Myerstown, PA 17067,
telephone 717/9334157.
□ HOLSTEIN □ AYRSHIRE
□ GUERNSEY □ JERSEY
FEED FLORIN