Paddling the way to cleanliness

NORWOOD YOUNG AMERICA, Minn. — The transition from emptying the manure from a barn by hand or by litter carrier to a barn cleaner dates to the mid-1900s.    Many farmers made the switch back then, including dairy farmer Leonard Hoen.

Hoen currently helps on the 80-cow dairy farm operated by his son, Steven, but started his farming career helping on his parents’ dairy farm at the age of 7.

“(The barn cleaner) was one of the better (advancements),” Hoen said. “Those were all things that you did to save time. … You got to spend more time with your family.”

The original design of the barn cleaner was engineered and patented by the late Paul Patz. Patz lived in Pound, Wisconsin, and ultimately grew his business, Patz Corporation. Patz worked on a farm milking 40 cows in the 1920s, according to Patz Corporation.

On the farm, one of Patz’s jobs was to clean the manure out of the gutter by hand. Patz then looked into the litter carrier to help with the effort and eventually invented a machine to clean the manure out, according to Patz Corporation. Patz designed, built and installed the initial barn cleaner in 1945.

From 1940 to 1946 Patz worked towards various single-gutter designs for barn cleaners. From 1946 to 1948, he worked on inventing a system with two gutters and one motor. According to Patz Corporation, Patz’s goal was to get away from the manure pits at the end of the barn. In 1948, Patz sold his first barn cleaner.

“There’s a great sense of pride that after 77 years, we are still selling the same product that Paul Patz invented,” said Jon Patz, grandson of Paul Patz and Patz Corporation president. “This product isn’t just used in dairy operations, but has expanded to different markets such as poultry, industrial, food processing, sawmills, composting and many more. To see his vision still making a positive impact after all these years is inspiring. As we continue to expand our product line, we always remember where we started: with the barn cleaner.”

During his time, Patz also invented and patented the hook and eye link for the barn cleaner.

“I got an idea and began to cut some car wire and shaped it a way where it would make a link,” Paul Patz said during an interview in 1978. “And another link of the same design would hook into it, so that any number of links could be made to hook together. And it would be flexible to be able to round the corner and also travel under what we call the hold down shoe.”

According to Patz Corporation the hook and eye chain link made it possible to have a two gutter barn cleaner with one drive unit.

“I was 6 years old when my dad invented the Flexible Patz Hook & Eye Chain Link that became an instant hit with the dairy farmers,” said Howard Patz, son of Paul Patz and Patz Corporation board member. “His invention was the first in the world with a continuous loop, multi-gutter fully automated machine to move the manure from the cows to the manure spreader with the flip of a switch.”

In 1960, Hoen bought his farm at 19 years old and started milking on May 17, 1964. His barn was built in 1940 and held 23 cows. At the time, Hoen’s barn did not have a barn cleaner, so for roughly four years, he had to clean out the 6-inch gutter by hand.

The cows were let out of the barn, no matter the weather, and Hoen went to work. He drove his 660 Oliver and a Knight spreader into the barn, he said. Using a pitchfork to get the solids out and a shovel to get the leftover manure, Hoen started putting everything into the manure spreader. As he got each section of the gutter cleaned out, Hoen said he pulled the tractor forward until he was finished, then he backed it out of the barn.

“I was a lot stronger then than I am now,” Hoen said.

Hoen also worked for the Dairy Herd Improvement Association, testing milk for different farmers and saw their barn cleaners. He said the plan was then to add a barn cleaner to his own operation.

“There was a lot of people that had barn cleaners,” Hoen said. “This barn … was good for starting out and I didn’t have that many animals at that time.”

In 1968, Hoen added 30 stalls onto the barn and also installed a barn cleaner. Throughout this process, he said he had to make the gutter deeper so it could hold more manure.

Some barn cleaners operated clockwise and others went counterclockwise. In Hoen’s barn, his cleaner operated clockwise. He said the chute made the shape of an “L” and went out the north side of the barn. He said at the time, they only had 16-foot chutes, but he wanted it longer, so he had the manufacturer make it 20 feet instead.

“When it had a lot of manure and water, then it would go up a lot easier,” Hoen said. “It helped with the (manure) going out, but it added more chain.”

Hoen said once the barn cleaner was installed and working, he ran it once a day and it took about 10-15 minutes to clean the barn out.

“(Cleaning out by hand) would always take a half hour or three-quarters of an hour, just depends on how they are filled,” Hoen said. “I would say it saved an hour at least for me at that time when I had to milk that number of cows.”

Hoen said they still use the barn cleaner to this day, though they have switched out the chain since the first installation. Fifteen years ago, they upgraded the barn to a step-up parlor and the Hoens now push all the manure into the barn cleaner each day and run it once a week to clean it out.

Through the invention of the barn cleaner, dairy farmers like Hoen no longer had to clean the barn out using a pitchfork and a shovel.

Source: 

­—“The Barn Cleaner. Where Patz story begins” published by Patz Corporation

—Patz Corporation website