Vaughan Company has been creating reliable chopper pumps for over 60 years. During this time, many field engineers have asked about the pumps’ chopping capabilities. Kent Keeran, chief engineer of Vaughan Company recalls one particularly memorable request.

“Quite a few years ago we got a call from an engineer in Egypt who asked if we could pump a water and grain slurry. The U.S. was working with Egypt at that time to put in modern grain storage systems to replace huge piles of grain stored on the ground. Their intention was to dig ditches and wash the old grain into the ditches with fire hoses. We commented that yes, we can pump a grain slurry as long as it’s a flowable fluid with enough water. The engineer cautioned, though, that there was a special challenge here — rats.”

“Vaughan’s chief engineer at the time was mostly unconcerned, knowing that we could easily pump a few dead rats. ‘No, you must understand,’ the Egyptian engineer cautioned, ‘that these rats have been living very well on grain, and they are the size of small dogs.’ At that point our former chief engineer called across the hall to Larry Vaughan (son of founder Jim Vaughan), ‘Hey Larry, what do you think about pumping rats the size of a small dog?’ Larry responded, ‘I’m sure we can do that; one of our dealers in Missouri told me that he was often told of his customers pumping drowned skunks that would fall into their chicken manure pits.’ So we successfully provided Vaughan chopper pumps to pump a rat-grain slurry in Egypt.”

Watch for more true stories from Vaughan. With over 60 years of field use, there are many unique challenges the Vaughan chopper pumps are called to resolve.

For more information, contact Vaughan Company at 888-249-2467 or info@chopperpumps.com.