Speaking of farm automation, here’s an early adopter. From the REA news in 1954.
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Farmers may be spending more time in bed winter mornings. A new device has been perfected that will feed the stock for them entirely automatically.
The new gadget – it’s called a Robot Automatic Stock Feeder – not only leads a horse to water but literally pours his drink as well. Heart of the system is an electrically-operated switch that can be set to start a horn blowing at any time of day. The horn calls the farm’s animals to dinner, and a few minutes later the switch activates a mechanism that doles out the right amount of feed into the trough.
Meanwhile, the farmer doesn’t set foot outside the farm house. The robot was dreamed up by two Oklahomans, Joe Reynolds and Charles Bruton, and is now being sold by Hobart Manufacturing Co., Hobart, Okla. Tork Clock Co. made the switch that works the device and reports it can be set to feed cattle automatically from one to 24 times a day.
The cows get to learn that the sound of the horn means dinnertime in nothing flat, a spokesman reports. Once the noise has begun, the switch can be set to wait for two to 55 minutes before the mechanism starts dispensing food. That’s to allow stragglers to get to the trough from all parts of the field in time to get their share of the eats.
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Polistra's Mill 