Winter kraal manure is its own animal. By the time you get to it in late July or August, pen pack from a busy feedlot or dairy can be dense, compressed, and far heavier than what the machine sees in a wet autumn season. Getting the setup wrong on the first pass costs you time, can put unnecessary strain on the drivetrain, and often leaves a spread pattern that looks like someone tipped a skip rather than applied fertiliser. The sequence below covers what to check before anything moves, how the auger system should be feeding the expeller, and what to do with ground speed once you are actually in the paddock.
Tractor Hydraulics, Hitch, and PTO: Before the Manure Hits the Expeller
The 2010 SLC runs at 1,000 RPM input. That matters before you even lift the drawbar pin. A tractor set to 540 RPM output will starve the expeller and you will know about it within the first 50 metres. Confirm the PTO shaft is set for 1,000 RPM and that the tractor has at least 90 kW (120 Hp) available at the output shaft. The machine’s minimum power requirement is 90 kW, and with a full load of winter-hard kraal material, you want to be at that figure or above, not limping along beneath it.
Hitch height affects how cleanly the augers turn. The 2010 SLC has a loading height of 2.01 m (79 inches), and the drawbar should be set so the machine sits level when coupled. Tilt it nose-down and material migrates forward in the hopper; nose-up and the rear portion of the load sits against the door before the augers can pull it through evenly. Level is not a suggestion here. It genuinely changes how the load feeds.
Two hydraulic circuits need to be mapped before you load: one for the door opening and one for the deflector shield. The door controls how much material leaves the machine per unit of time. The deflector shield, which is hydraulically controlled as standard on the 20 Series, manages spread width from the cab. Set both levers before loading so you are not hunting for the right spool under full PTO with a tractor operator waiting on you. Mark them if your tractor cab does not label them clearly.
Expeller RPM is the other setting people rush past. It directly controls particle size and how high the material arches. Pen-packed winter manure tends to arrive in compressed chunks, and a low expeller RPM will throw those chunks rather than breaking them down. Start at the top of your hydraulic range and adjust down only once you can see the spread pattern establishing itself on the first pass.
How the Dual Augers Feed the Expeller
The 2010 SLC carries two 60 cm (24 inch) diameter augers inside the hopper. That is a wide auger for this class of machine, and the geometry matters. The larger diameter creates steeper hopper sidewalls relative to the auger’s centre, which keeps material moving inward rather than bridging above the flights. It also keeps loading height manageable at 2.01 m.
The two augers operate in opposite directions to one another. The point of that arrangement is to deliver a continuous, even supply of material to the expeller rather than surging it from one side. With kraal manure that has been sitting in a pen through a dry Free State winter, you will often have layers of different density in the same load: loose dusty material on top and compressed pack lower down. Counter-rotating augers tend to homogenise that layering as the load drops, so what reaches the expeller is more consistent than what was loaded.
Where operators get into trouble is loading too fast. A full bucket dropped straight onto one end of the hopper concentrates the load before the augers can redistribute it. Load steadily, work from the front of the hopper rearward, and keep the tractor stationary until the augers have a chance to equalise the load. If the machine is shuddering under PTO at the start of a load cycle, that is usually a sign that too much mass landed in one spot before the augers could move it.
The expeller hammers on the 20 Series have a 56 cm (22 inch) swing diameter and use oil-impregnated bushings. The door opening they work through is 56 cm x 102 cm (22 x 40 inches). With compacted winter material, do not underestimate what that door dimension means for throughput. A 15% larger door opening compared to the previous generation means material that would have bridged or slowed discharge earlier moves through more freely. Keep the door at a consistent setting for the first few loads until you understand how quickly the hopper empties at a given tractor speed.
Field Pattern and Ground Speed for Winter-Hard Paddocks
Pen-packed kraal manure in late winter is denser than most operators account for when they set their initial application rate. Before the first pass, walk the paddock if you can. Look for the zones where the soil surface is hardest. Those areas will reflect the expeller’s output differently because there is less surface texture to catch and hold the material where it lands.
Ground speed is your primary tool for controlling application rate density once the door opening and expeller RPM are fixed. Slower passes deposit more material per square metre; faster passes thin it out. On winter-hard ground where you are putting down a pre-spring application ahead of planting, most operators target their slower end of the speed range for the first pass, then adjust on subsequent loads if the rate looks heavy. There is no universal figure here because load density varies, but the logic is consistent: set the door, set the RPM, and then use speed as your fine adjustment.
For the field pattern itself, work in parallel runs and overlap slightly on each pass. The deflector shield controls spread width from the cab, which means you can adjust on the fly if the wind shifts or if one side of the pattern is landing short. On a paddock that runs east-west, a westerly wind in the Free State in August will push material off-line more than you expect. Adjust the shield early rather than waiting until you are driving through your own spread.
Keep headland turns tight and consistent. Do not open the door on the headland while the machine is still turning. The augers and expeller keep moving, and material leaving the machine on a curve will pile on one side of the turn. Close the door at the end of each run and reopen it once the tractor is straightened up and at target speed. It adds a few seconds per pass, but the application evenness on the edges is worth it.
If you are managing multiple paddocks across a season and want to understand how spreader design affects the durability of what you are running, the agronomic and operational case for commercial-duty spreaders is worth reviewing before you commit to a spreading programme. And if the season’s workload has you thinking about chain wear in drought-hardened conditions specifically, there is a detailed breakdown of that problem available that covers how dry-season material changes the shock loads your drivetrain sees.
Checking the Spread Pattern Before You Move On
Stop after the first full pass and walk it. You are looking for two things: distribution evenness across the width, and particle size. If you are seeing large clods landing close to the machine and fine material throwing wide, the expeller RPM is too low. Increase it. If the spread width is narrower on one side than the other, adjust the deflector shield position and take note of where it sits for this load type. Winter kraal material often behaves differently from summer-spread material at the same settings.
The 2010 SLC is a commercial-duty machine, and the full LEO Agriculture spreader range is built around the assumption that operators are running it hard, season after season. But even a well-built machine will spread unevenly if the first-day settings are not matched to the material in the hopper. Take the time on load one, load two, and load three to get the door, the RPM, and the ground speed dialled in together. After that, the machine runs itself.
One thing operators sometimes overlook on stainless steel hoppers: the first load of the season often carries concentrated moisture from material that has been sitting against compacted kraal soil. Let the first load discharge completely, then inspect the hopper floor and auger flighting before the second load goes in. If there is any residual pack sitting against the auger base, clear it before it compounds. LEO Agriculture builds the 20 Series with stainless steel side walls, front and rear panels, door chute, expeller shroud, and top rail as standard, which handles that environment well over time. But mechanical inspection on day one of a new season is still worth the ten minutes it takes.
For operators who are weighing up spreader options ahead of the spring spreading window, the current pricing on LEO’s heavy-duty spreader range is worth checking before the season closes in on you.
