I work on a poultry farm and one of the daily tasks is to gather all the dead dispose of them. We grow 45lb heavy toms and I've been putting them in a wheel barrow which is pretty hard to push once you reach about 5 birds. We have a gorilla cart which has 4 pneumatic tires and is steerable. I would like to outfit this cart with an electric motor but need some advice on what motor to use as well as how to control speed. Any input would be great. Thanks

 

Look for a motor with high torque to handle heavy loads and steep terrain. A motor having 10–20 Nm of torque will do.

 

Adding an electric drive system to a non-driven cart is a very big change. I suggest investigating the drive system service manuals for similar powered utility carts, on-line, to get some insight as to what is involved. AND, understand the battery power requirements.

 

Adding an electric drive system to a non-driven cart is a very big change. I suggest investigating the drive system service manuals for similar powered utility carts, on-line, to get some insight as to what is involved. AND, understand the battery power requirements.

MisterBill2 is correct. There's more to this than you seem to think. You need to find a battery with sufficient capacity to run it as long as you need to as well the power to drive the motor. You'll need some means to control the motor. And finally, you need to mount that motor and to provide a gear train/axle system to get the power to the wheels.

Do a search for "electric cart". You'll find an array of ready made wagons and wheelbarrows.

 

There is no utility vehicle you can use to pull a trailer?

 

I can see where that would be quite a large effort, over 250 pounds of dead turkeys in a barrow. Certainly a better front wheel might make moving it easier, but it will not change the weight. An OSHA inspector might have an opinion about the required effort, but those inspectors are quite unpleasant to deal with.
I suggest also, investigating Harbor Freight for a motorized cart.

 

I work on a poultry farm and one of the daily tasks is to gather all the dead dispose of them. We grow 45lb heavy toms and I've been putting them in a wheel barrow which is pretty hard to push once you reach about 5 birds. We have a gorilla cart which has 4 pneumatic tires and is steerable. I would like to outfit this cart with an electric motor but need some advice on what motor to use as well as how to control speed. Any input would be great. Thanks

You might look into the pushers that grocery stores use to gather long strings of shopping carts from the parking lots.

 

That must actually be quite a large turkey farm for five a day not to provoke an investigation as to how can the problem be solved. Or maybe not. I am aware that domestic turkeys are not very smart.

 

Thank you all for your replies! And 5 per day is not even in the ball park.... is more like 25. We start 17k so it's just par for the course when it comes to picking up dead. I have to actually pull the wheelbarrow because to push that much weight thru all that gumbo is practically impossible.

 

You might look into the pushers that grocery stores use to gather long strings of shopping carts from the parking lots.

Company I worked for built a laundry cart 'tugger'. I'm thinking that traction could be a problem, unless you maybe mounted a hitch on top to bear the weight of a trailer. We used a Chinese diff with motor mount and a couple auto batteries.

 

Certainly battery capacity and battery weight will be an issue, considering that we do not know the total distance that the load needs to be moved. Travel range can be a real problem, and it will require a fair amount to determine how many watt-hours of battery capacity will be required.
I understand completely about pulling the wheelbarrow rather than pushing it. That is the most energy intensive device for transporting weight that I am aware of, even the travois is less work under most conditions.
And it may be that the width of the passage limits the size of the vehicle.
Battery power is either expensive or heavy, and often both. So there needs to be some analysis of the actual requirements before correct advice can be delivered.

 

There are 2 houses which are 50'x674'. I make 4 passes thru each house. As far as a lane is concerned it wouldn't really matter just as long as I can get it thru a 32" door. Also there are several 'throw-out' doors where I toss them outside and then gather them with a skid loader. I couldn't run anything gas powered thru because the noise would spook them and towards the end of the flock they're packed in there pretty tight. Distance would be roughly 5400' per day. But as I said there are 6 throw-out doors evenly spaced to off load the weight. So the furthest it would need to carry a load would be ~120'. Thanks again!

 

How about an electric utility cart such as this?

 

I am thinking now, since we have a better description of the portion of the process, that a major reduction in the required effort does not need to include an additional power source. A serious reduction in effort could be adequate. A fair reduction in rolling effort plus removing the requirement to be carrying a large portion of the load would certainly provide a real reduction in the total amount of energy spent completing the task. What we do not have much clue about is the nature of the surface being rolled over. The solution might be as simple as a correct sized four wheel cart with hard tires and wheels with ball bearings, or possibly roller bearings. There is a great deal of effort reduction that could be done for less than the cost of one large sized battery.
I realize this concept is not what the TS requested, but as much more detail was revealed it seems like an alternative will be much simpler to implement, and a whole lot less costly.