We spread 600 to 700 acres of beef manure, chicken litter and turkey manure. The 1190VB does a nice even job spreading and it’s a reliable machine.
We’ve used just about every spreader you could think of. We’ve used several beater spreaders and other types of spreaders.
With the Pik Rite machines, we like the simple design of the hydraulic push. We like the fact that the machine travels smoothly through the fields compared to competitive models that bounce all over the place as they unload. We are also impressed with the consistent spread pattern.
We ran a competitor model and a Pik Rite 1190VB side by side before we purchased ours to figure out which direction we were going to go. We hooked each spreader to a tractor and went through the field at the same time. We were very pleased with the consistent pattern of the Pik Rite.
Our biggest deciding factor was the chassis. The competitor’s model we ran, when it was about 1/4 the way empty, there was zero tongue weight and it would bounce and rock and roll and rattle on the hitch. I was concerned that if I ran one for too long or too many acres I’d be snapping a pin or popping a pin out of the hitch and losing a spreader.
Pik Rite had plenty of tongue weight and it just traveled perfectly fine through the field. This unit has a real simple hydraulic push that does a nice consistent job spreading the material.
In terms of customer service, the staff accommodated us to what we needed. We told them we wanted to do as wide a spread pattern as possible so they customized our beaters. They recommended putting more bear-claws on our rotors on the beaters to throw the manure further. Then they balanced them to make sure that stuff wasn’t going to fly apart and it would hold up to the load and be within their specs. It does throw further.
I know that if we ever do have issues down the road we’re going to have support.