Before you adjust the ration formulation or blame the tractor’s hydraulics, walk around to the auger and look at the kicker. That small bolt-on piece at the outer leading edge of the auger flight is doing more work than most operators give it credit for. When it wears down or gets skipped entirely, TMR uniformity suffers, mix times creep up, and the fuel bill follows. The fix costs less than a tank of diesel.
What a Kicker Actually Does
The goal inside a vertical mixer is what the industry sometimes calls a rolling boil. Feed needs to scrape along the floor, get picked up by the auger flight, travel up the wall, cascade outward, and fall back into the cutting zone. That cycle, repeated constantly through the mix cycle, is what breaks down bales, blends ingredients, and produces a consistent ration.
The kicker drives that cycle. Positioned at the outer lower leading edge of the auger, it scrapes and sweeps the floor, then lifts and kicks material back upward toward the center. Without it, or with one that has worn flat, feed packs against the floor. Dead spots develop in the corners. The auger spins through the mix without actually engaging it. You can run the mix twice as long and still pull clumps from the discharge.
A collapsed flow state also increases torque demand. The auger is fighting packed material instead of moving it, which means more fuel consumed per batch and more stress on the gearbox. The kicker is not a luxury component. It is what keeps the whole mixing dynamic working the way it should.
Four Sizes, One Straightforward Logic
Not every ration asks the same thing of a kicker. A high-hay load with dry round bales needs aggressive floor action because the material is light, springy, and resistant to movement. A wet TMR blend with high silage inclusion flows more readily on its own, so a smaller kicker profile is enough and a larger one can actually create too much wall pressure for the ration density.
LEO Agriculture’s bolt-on kicker system addresses this with four sizes: Small, Medium, Large, and Extreme. The Extreme is designed specifically for light-density material, adding a lip to the standard large geometry to increase scraping aggressiveness on fluffy or dry rations. High-hay rations match to the larger end of the range. Wet blends run better with the smaller profiles. The idea is to match the kicker’s aggressiveness to the density of what is actually in the drum, rather than using whatever happened to ship on the machine.
For operators running a diverse mix calendar, this also means you can dial in the kicker to the season. Summer silage-heavy rations and dry winter hay rations are not the same job. Swapping kicker size at the start of a seasonal ration change takes maybe twenty minutes and costs nothing compared with the efficiency loss of running the wrong size for six months straight. For a broader look at how auger geometry and ration type interact, this breakdown of auger flow design covers the mechanics in more detail.
Bolt-On Is the Key Word
A welded kicker is a one-and-done design choice. Once it wears, you are either grinding and rewelding in the field (not a realistic option for most operations) or pulling the auger for a shop repair. That is a full day of downtime minimum, often more if parts need ordering.
A bolt-on kicker changes the economics entirely. The worn piece comes off with basic hand tools. The replacement goes on the same way. The auger stays in the machine. On a busy dairy or feedlot, that means the repair happens between mix cycles rather than instead of them. Downtime is one missed batch rather than a lost day of feeding.
This is the same principle that makes modular knife systems worth specifying. The logic is identical: isolate the wear item, make it replaceable without disturbing the rest of the machine, and keep the cost of wear where it belongs, on a small consumable rather than on a major structural component. If you are evaluating which mixer configuration fits your scale before committing to a purchase, this guide to selecting the right vertical TMR mixer is worth reading before that decision is made.
Diagnosing a Kicker Problem in the Field
The signs are usually there before an operator names the cause. Mix times that have gradually lengthened without any change in ration. Discharge that looks inconsistent, with dry pockets or clumps even after a full cycle. Fuel use that has drifted upward. Any one of these can have other causes, but the kicker should be the first thing you check because it is the cheapest one to rule out.
Open the mixer and look at the kicker face-on. A functioning kicker has a distinct leading profile. A worn one is visibly rounded or reduced, sometimes to almost nothing. If you can rock it by hand, it may also have fastener wear at the mounting points. Check the bolt torque while you are in there.
Also consider whether the current kicker size still matches the ration. An operation that has shifted from primarily dry hay to a wetter silage-forward blend might be running a kicker that was correct eighteen months ago and is now oversized for the daily mix. Ration changes are worth a kicker review, not just a knife check.
Where the Kicker Fits in a Broader Maintenance Sequence
Kicker inspection belongs in every pre-season check and ideally in a monthly visual during peak feeding periods. It pairs naturally with knife inspection since both are bolt-on wear items at the auger. While you are checking the kicker, look at knife edge condition as well, and verify that the floor clearance has not changed due to auger wear or settling of any mounting components.
On machines running dual augers, check both. The kicker on each auger creates its own floor sweep pattern, and an asymmetry between the two will show up in the mix even if one side looks fine.
For operators running smaller herds on compact machines, the same principle applies. The VT Series twin-auger mixers follow the same auger geometry as larger commercial units, and the kicker function is just as critical at lower volumes. A dead spot in a 6-cubic-meter machine affects ration uniformity just as meaningfully as in a 30-cubic-meter unit, just across fewer animals.
Running without a functioning kicker degrades mix quality and raises operating costs. The fix is bolt-on, field-serviceable, and sized to match your ration. There is not a cheaper correction available in the whole machine.
