Maximize Mixing Performance to Enhance Efficiency

It’s not just ranchers who are doing more with less. Vermeer incorporates lean manufacturing — the practice of minimizing waste and maximizing efficiency — both in their equipment creation and inspiration.

Vermeer Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Mark Core is a cow-calf operator himself. He knows from experience that feed contributes some of the highest input costs, which is why Vermeer designs products that enhance efficiency, like a vertical mixer.

It’s not all down to equipment, though. Core suggests feed- or hay-handling practices to reduce time and trips in moving materials multiple times — like changes in ways of putting up, storing and feeding hay — have added efficiency.

Six years ago, Core relied on bale rings to feed his cattle herd, but once he invested in a vertical mixer and a concrete pad, he says, that changed the game.

A concrete mixing floor keeps feedstuffs out of the mud and snow, and any materials that spill from the mixer can be quickly recovered instead of being lost.