Mixing Large Quantities of Seed Together

[birdog]

What are you guys doing to mix large quantities of seed together? My method of pouring everything in a large tub and mixing by hand sucks. I end up with my arm covered in seed and sweating my butt off. I've been trying to find those plastic barrel DIY cement mixers where you throw a bag or two of cement in, add water and then roll it around on the ground to mix everything. I'm not having any luck finding one so I hope someone here can help me out with a better way.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

interested in answers to this. I either mixed them in a 150 qt cooler or dumped the weight for one acres worth at a time in individual contractor bags and tossed em around.

Edit to add: was kind of a PITA to get it out of a big 150 qt cooler compared to a contractor bag. Contractor bag is easy, i just need to put them in a garbage can for structure next time to make it easier to dump seed in them. Depends on seed rate but I was putting 80+lb of seed per bag into each contractor bag.

 

[birdog]

I have done the same as you. It would be nice to be able to mix everything at once before I broadcast.
This ones not too bad.

 

[Bill]

If I mixed a lot of seed I'd have one of these.

3-1/2 Cubic Ft. Cement Mixer

Amazing deals on this 3-1/2 Cubicft Cement Mixer at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[birdog]

If I mixed a lot of seed I'd have one of these.

3-1/2 Cubic Ft. Cement Mixer

Amazing deals on this 3-1/2 Cubicft Cement Mixer at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

I agree. If I had a lot to mix that would work great.

 

[SwampCat]

I just put them in a barrel and get the kids roll it around for a few minutes. Vibration in the hopper will do the rest. It is not life altering if their is a spot in a food plot that isnt perfect. Dont let perfect get in the way of good. This is food plotting. Not living or dying.

 

[birdog]

I just put them in a barrel and get the kids roll it around for a few minutes. Vibration in the hopper will do the rest. It is not life altering if their is a spot in a food plot that isnt perfect. Dont let perfect get in the way of good. This is food plotting. Not living or dying.

I am fully aware food plotting is not life or death. I'm just looking for a better way to mix seed. Your idea is good so thank you for that.

 

[SwampCat]

I am fully aware food plotting is not life or death. I'm just looking for a better way to mix seed. Your idea is good so thank you for that.

Didnt mean to come off obtuse. I have seen the day i would bush hog a five acre field and when finished , look back and see a 2x3’ spot on the far side i missed - and drive back 200 yards to get it. I have learned after almost 50 year of doing this, that it doesnt matter. I have been as serious about it as anyone for a very long time. Now that I am almost 70, I have learned those small transgressions mattered a lot more to me than the deer. Just offering my own aged perspective - but I value yours none the less. I apologize - no offense intended.

 

[Jerry-B-WI]

Someone posted the other day that they use a paint mixer in a corded drill. Might work for you.

 

[birdog]

Didnt mean to come off obtuse. I have seen the day i would bush hog a five acre field and when finished , look back and see a 2x3’ spot on the far side i missed - and drive back 200 yards to get it. I have learned after almost 50 year of doing this, that it doesnt matter. I have been as serious about it as anyone for a very long time. Now that I am almost 70, I have learned those small transgressions mattered a lot more to me than the deer. Just offering my own aged perspective - but I value yours none the less. I apologize - no offense intended.

You're good SwampCat. You are correct in that sometimes we take things a little too seriously. Been there done that my friend!

 

[birdog]

Someone posted the other day that they use a paint mixer in a corded drill. Might work for you.

I thought about that after reading a story about how small hard seeds like clover benefit by scratching the outside coating of the seed. The story I read was it helps germination. A paint mixer might do a good with scratching the coating of the seed, assuming the story I read was legit.

 

[Brian662]

I have an extra 100 gallon stock watering tote I use to dump the seed in and mix it up. Then use my 2 gallon chemical measuring cup to scoop it out with and load the broadcast spreader.

I normally dump all the seed in the tote about a week ahead of time and let the kids crawl around in there and play. They seem to enjoy it, planting my cereal mix in another week once the heat moves out, I'm sure this year will be no different.

 

[Kdog]

I never mixed and extreme amount of seeds, but when I did mix them, I used a 5 or 10 gallon container and a quick mixer.

You could always get a food grade plastic container and just roll it around as others mentioned if you have more to mix.

Anvil 30 in. Steel Quick Mixer 826690 - The Home Depot

The Anvil Quick Mud Mixer is ideal for mixing mortar, thin set, drywall joint compound, acoustic texture and other similar construction materials. The blade angle lifts, folds and whips material to an

www.homedepot.com

 

[Hoytvectrix]

I'm with Wind Gypsy and I've seen a post from Wild Thing doing the same when it comes to mixing into smaller containers. I like using 5 gallon buckets with lids and moving those around the fields. It adds more time to the seeding and mixing part, but it helps to ensure you are spreading all of your seeds more evenly. Even when drilling with seeds of varying sizes, it doesn't take long for the smaller seeds to be settled down to the bottom. I feel like I am in an aggressive learning stage of my habitat management. There is value in limiting points of error to save time and energy in the long run.

 

[Tree Spud]

I use a couple of 5 gallon buckets with screw on lids. Fill them about 3/5 full, put the lids on, then tumble them by had. You can use a couple of empty pails to pour the seed in to further mix. I mix about 400 lbs or more of seed like this.

 

[natoshoe]

Just purchased a 4 cu ft cement mixer similiar to the ones posted. Used it to mix, evenly by weight, 250# of oats and 250# of wheat. I could put one 50# bag of oats and one 50# bag of wheat at a time. As expected, when in the verticle position, it mixes nothing but just goes around with the drum. When tilted, it mixes very well.

It's much faster to do half bags twice rather than full bags once (because you can tilt it more). Even with 4 cu ft, you can't tilt much before it comes out with two full bags (I've got to find something like a circular spring clip the size of the opening and a disc to close it off so that it can be tilted more).

Much of these "problems" are caused by the large volume of a 50# bag of oats but overall it was a success. It should work great with smaller seeds. I may try mixing some sand with clover seed soon.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I have done the same as you. It would be nice to be able to mix everything at once before I broadcast.
This ones not too bad.

I like this setup a lot but i'm not handy enough to build something like that without burning a bunch of time.

 

[Foggy47]

I posted about using a spiral paint mixer at one time. It works......but I have not been using that method in recent times. Instead I use a large plastic tray to catch spills and three plastic pails to pour seeds back and forth and do some hand mixing too. I've considered a cement mixer too.....but 'get along" pretty well with my current methods.

A spiral mixer is shown in the below pics.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Anvil-2-in-Steel-Spiral-Mixer-82422/308729659

 

[WTNUT]

Not sure what types of seed you are talking about, but I never mix a lot off seeds together. I might mix a few varieties of white clover together or wheat, rye and oats.

But, it you are trying to mix seeds of different sizes together and the broadcast all at the same time I can not and have not ever see/seen that work.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Foggy47]

Not sure what types of seed you are talking about, but I never mix a lot off seeds together. I might mix a few varieties of white clover together or wheat, rye and oats.

But, it you are trying to mix seeds of different sizes together and the broadcast all at the same time I can not and have not ever see/seen that work.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I had three different seeds in my large hopper yesterday........and a mix of 8 different seeds in my small hopper. I was putting out 140 lbs of these mixes to the acre......over ten acres. I can not imagine making 11 trips over the land to spread 11 varieties of seeds........much less a shoulder bag and a crank to put down 1,400 lbs of seeds. Then too...in the past, I would have done all the soil prep and cultipacking and dragging different seeds. PHEW!

Blending those seeds together and drilling into a little slot in the ground has taken ALLOT of work out of the game for me.