MARWAYNE, Alta. — An Alberta farmer has made a business turning used tires inside out.
Instead of letting old tires gather in the scrap heap, Allan and Christine Brown have given old tires a second life. The tires are turned inside out and become indestructible cattle feeders and horse waterers.
The Browns have more of an attachment to tires than most families. There are 5,000 tires buried in their river valley yard to stabilize the area.
Buried along the river are tires to help shore up a dam. The stairs leading down to the river are made of tires. In the yard is a waterfall made from tires. And Brown helped a neighbor design a 6,000-tire windbreak to shelter his animals from the cold.
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He first began using inverted tires as feeders for the horses on his quarter-section farm. While travelling to farms with their hoof trimming business the Browns realized there was a demand for unbreakable livestock feeders.
“It’s a raw product no one is using,” said Brown.
Fifteen tires an hour
Three years ago he put the finishing touches on his portable tire inverter. His daughter, Jessica and her boyfriend, Brad Wolstenholme, have now taken over the tire inverting business. The pair travel across the Prairies turning tires into feeders. If things are running smoothly they can invert 15 tires an hour.
“You work toward your own extinction in some areas,” Wolstenholme said.
Brown has been working closely with provincial and state environment departments. Many governments don’t want tires filling up landfill sites and can see this giving tires a new use.
The three-year-old business turns about 3,000 tires a year. In some areas they’ve cleaned all the old tires out of landfill sites and farmyards. Over the years they’ve taken 600 tractor tires out of the North Battleford, Sask. dump.
“I like working with tires because they’re a raw product and (because of) the quality and quantity of them,” Brown said.
Won’t rust or rot
It wasn’t long after Brown began inverting small tires he realized there must be a use for the larger mining equipment tires. The four metre (13-foot) tires would make ideal tanks for watering cattle.
In the past few years there has been a push to stop livestock from watering directly in streams and dugouts. The tire waterers are “indestructible” and will not rust or rot. They can hold between 1,000 and 2,500 gallons of water.
The 2,268-kilogram (5,000-pound) tires are split using a picker truck and a type of knife mounted on a machine designed by Brown. The tire is then bolted to a base that seals the tank.
He also makes cattle feeders from the same tires. About 18 bulls can eat around one: “The biggest problem is people don’t believe they’re that big.”
He’s also looking at designing outdoor pig housing and pig feeders from tires. Ostrich farmers are looking seriously at tire fencing.
Last year he took home 700 large industrial tires. He’s almost sold out.
When the couple expanded the business to specialize into larger tires they took on two more partners and moved their office from the farm to Lloydminster.
