I am considering the Millcreek 57, but we bed on straw. I am told you can buy an extra “top beater” as an option to help with straw, but that it may not be necessary with horse manure and straw, as opposed to cow manure and straw. Can anyone speak to this from experience? Also, anyone use a Kubota RTV to pull a ground driven Millcreek? Thanks much!
We had a ground drive Millcreek spreader years ago. Not sure the size, but it handled straw just fine with no “extras” put on it. Even loaded with LOTS of manure, it did a good job spreading for us.
The only thing with ground drive, is you have to keep spreading until the load is emptied, which might be a pain on wet days. Don’t let the load sit in the spreader if it is cold, if the chain freezes solid, you have to chunk out that load by hand. No PTO to have the power to move the chain for you. This means DAILY spreading in this terribly cold weather, or even moderately cold where things freeze at all. We pulled our spreader with an old 8N Ford, did a nice job on the acreage we had to spread on. 5-6 horses at that time, tie stalls, all cleaned daily for a load.
I liked the spreader a lot, but it got wrecked when a speeding truck hit it crossing the road. Son on the tractor was all right, and we were grateful for that! Next spreader was PTO driven. I like that much better for the power and ability to dump wherever I want, with not driving to empty the spreader. Gives me choices.
But if you don’t have PTO to run a spreader, the plain Millcreek ground drive should do a good job for you. Keeping it emptied should give it a longer life as well. Manure and urine are extremely corrosive to metal of the sides, chains and bars.
Consider, even if you have a tractor with PTO, if you want to keep hooking and unhooking the PTO every time you need the tractor for other, or need to spread.
We had one 57 Millcreek and worked fine, pulled with our JD gator UTV.
It would spread old hay that was wet and trampled just fine without any extra attachments.
We were not using it much and a friend borrowed it.
She still has it, she spreads every few months with it.
OP, all of the Millcreek spreader models will handle hay and straw just fine - in fact, they have exclusive anti-wrap beaters designed specifically for it. Here’s a link to the video someone just posted of her 77 PTO spreading a load full of straw: http://bit.ly/Model77InTheSnow It does have the top beater attachment, but even without one on a 57 you’re in good shape.
As far as a tow vehicle for Ground Drive, your Kubota will work beautifully. If you are trying to decide whether or not to get the PTO model, here’s a video that will describe the pros/cons of both kinds of drive: http://bit.ly/MCGroundvPTO
Hope this is helpful!
