MANAGING self-feeders can be problematic.
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Which is why DE Engineers has designed its round feeders with a unique lick-style feed ring.
It stops sheep from over-feeding while saving feed on spillage by forcing sheep to use their tongue to access feed from a vee-shaped gap formed between the angled tray and adjustable feed ring.
The adjustable feed ring makes it easy to vary the amount of feed the sheep can access without having to lift the entire body (while often full of feed), as with other round feeders and reduces the amount of feed used by about 50 per cent.
The business also is designing a fully automatic, solar-powered feed system to pull feed from large capacity field bins and silos in the paddock which will be operated remotely, greatly reducing the amount of time spent feeding sheep.
While there are some automatic feed systems on the market that fill open troughing, DE's Auto Feed System uses the same lick-style feed tray as its round feeders, again reducing feed wastage.
And for your fertiliser storage needs, involving silos, all DE Engineers silos are made strong enough to handle granulated fertiliser such as DAP and Agras.
Urea, however, needs to be handled differently because of the way it cakes with moisture, often sticking-up in silos.
DE's specialised fertiliser silos are made with thicker walls and can be built with steeper cones though this is not recommended because the angle at which fertiliser will flow is similar to grain so there is no need to have steeper cones in silos.
This is a common mistake by some manufacturers as steeper cones often cause material to bridge.
Urea can be stored safely for short-term storage in stronger-walled silos but must be kept completely dry and care must be taken when unloading to make sure the material is flowing correctly.
Urea will clump or stick together and needs to be loosened from the silo walls to make sure it doesn't stick and flows evenly.
Many silos have been ruined when the cone of a silo has emptied and the walls have been left with urea sticking to them.
The best way to handle urea is to free it up by bumping the silo walls and hopper with a rubber mallet, while unloading.