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Kansas | What I want to do this summer/fall is make a bunker type of silo on ground that mimicks a concrete bunker. I plan to use round bales on each side to pack against and not much taller than the bales are high. I was told that I would have less spoilage with a drive over pile vs the bales idea, is that true? Anyone experienced it one way or the other? Only need about 3-400 tons of silage, so approx 20ft wide by 130ft long by 6ft tall. THX |
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E.Central MN | If you have any silage bagger guys around you could fill a 10'x 250' that holds about 400 tons of corn silage. Less spoilage, no extra tractor and operator to continuously pack the pile. A cheap silage pile isn't really cheap with today's high cost of corn. |
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Baldwin City, KS | I used bales to make the sides for a pile and left both ends open like a drive over pile. The bales held the form for the pile for the most part. I pulled them away carefully and covered the pile with plastic, then placed them back which held the plastic tight to the pile. Considering I had a relatively small pile (150 ton) I felt that I had little spoilage. |
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| Buy, rent, borrow, beg, or steal a bagger. Dry matter losses alone will pay for it. |
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Sioux Center, Iowa | I wouldn't mess with bales. We fill a bunker and make 5 other piles every year. The other piles are whatever size the hay crop happens to be. We make progressive wedges, meaning you don't pull wagons over the pile. Just make sure it's covered good with dirt and tires. The plastic shouldn't be able to move at all with the wind. |
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NWKS | I think your spoilage will be less with a square pile and pile it as deep as you can. |
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mn | get a bagger, what you save on feed loss will pay for bag cost |
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New Ulm, MN | get a bagger, if you cant get a bagger put plastic down over the bales before filling, after you done pull the palstic up and over the top. |
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western iowa,by Denison | drive over pile and no bales will be tighter pack,do you have a neighbor with a big 4wd,just hire him,I can get just as good of silage as a bagger-with the steiger bagger! |
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Hudson, South Dakota | The diaries here have gone to a wide base pile where you taper the sides out far enough that you can ride on and pack them, when done 100% of the pile is ridden on and packed. |
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SW IA | I did the round bale pile a couple years. I felt like a lot of spoilage on both bales and silage. I found some Harvestor panels for scrap iron price put up RR ties and mounted panels to ties with lag bolts. There is a lot less spoilage. If I decide not to use it anymore I can still sell the panels for scrap price. |
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swmn | <p>you will have little spoilage if you pack the pile hard enough. i wouldnt use bales. we laid cement last year for our piles, then started using the 4 wheeler to pack. before we used a 5240 maxxum w/ loader to pack. it did an excellent job but you have to keep it packing constantly. dont put too much down at once and a smaller tractor can do a good job( providing the silage is wet enough- 67+ moisture) make sure you can pack both ways on the pile w/ smaller tractor as the edges can be dangerous for tipping.</p>
Edited by mndairyfarmer 5/21/2011 08:53
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Manitoba | We did similar piles in the past using round bales to try and minimize the footprint of the pile and to mimic a bunker with walls (just as you are describing). Went away from that and just using drive over piles now. We had way more spoilage with the bales. If packed well and covered quickly and weighted down well the drive over has very little spoilage. With the bales we just had too many pockets of silage against the bales where we were not able to pack well enough and spoilage levels were much higher. Much riskier for the packer tractor as well as you can easily sink a tire close to the bales and get stuck (done that). Also the bales can easily push away if your not careful. If you go the bale route anyway make sure you pack in a way that you initially end up with the silage looking like a dish (sides higher than the middle), this keeps the tractor safe (angled to the inside instead of the outside) and then only mound the middle up at the end. That is a good idea IMO regardless of what the bunkers walls are made of.
Edited by Oakwood 5/21/2011 11:15
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mn | I do agree a 4 wheeler will do a great job, but if I understand the first ? of post, he is only talking 3-400 ton. I am not saying one over the other, but for a small job, and yes in todays ways a 3-400 ton job is small. In the fall we got two baggers that we do custom bagging with, a 9'er and a 10'er. and we are not as busy as used to be cause (I think) the big dairys and big beef guys, are chopping way more acers then used to, also they hire the chopping job done. a pile is fine. heck I do/did both, if we got a part of a bag that we cut off, I'll fill it at home, or if baggers a gone I'll pile and pack. that said I'm down to only 20 cows and feed calves out on selffeeder. so I personally have not chopped corn for a few yrs now. farming, milking and cattle feeding has and is changing so fast, what worked for dad, what is working for me and you, will be old thinking to our grandkids. LOL, but after saying that I started picking corn on the ear again last couple yrs, puting it in the crib and grinding with an ol 1150 ih mixer again. LOL remember I only got 20 cows. and as everyone that has ever feed cattle says " that darn earcorn is hard to beat, cattle love it, there is something about that cob " . be safe today :) |
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Kansas | Thanks guys for the replies so far, it helps a lot. I will be chopping sorghum silage, if we get enough rain to grow it :) If I do a bunker type w/ bales or sheet metal or whatever, it will only be around 20 ft wide and 6ft tall. I only have 100 calves to backround for 100 days in fall/winter, and then will feed 90 cows for 70-80 days. If using bales, I think that I will lay one edge of the plastic under the bales on the pile side, before we start packing and then pull it across and lay down tires. |
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Kaukauna WI | Silage bags are expensive. We quit using them. Our silage is put on the limestone-covered ground. No bales. No sides. Packing is VERY important. Get plastic on right away and cover with tires so that the tires touch each other. Very little spoilage. We have about the same size pile as you are proposing.
Edited by cousinit 5/21/2011 17:07
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Kaukauna WI | Yes, this is what we do. Works great and is cheapest per ton of feed. |
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Northwest Ks | that would probably be best, I have had several cutters tell me that if I didnt move the bales away after we were done packing that the dry bales will pull moisture out of the silage and lessen the fermenting process on the sides, dont know if theres truth to that, but just a thought |
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Kansas | magreen, it sounds like you have done it with bales before, How much silage spoilage did you see, also how much of the bale was wasted? |
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IN | get it bagged. |
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SE MN | Forget the bagger... 1500 cow dairy right next to me and they will pile hay and corn silage on the ground when they run out of room on there 15 blacktop pad. Only make the pile as wide as maybe 2-3 days worth of feed use. You don't need a big four wheel drive to do a good job packing the pile. A heavy 2wd tractor will do what you need to do. When we milked we would do the same thing. Get it packed right and keep the face moving = no spoilage . MTCW. |
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SE MN | 15 acre blacktop pad that is...
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S.C. Wisconsin | We do custom bagging and it comes to about $5.00 a ton and the customers doesn't have to furnish anything including fuel. The packing tractors don't run for nothing, you have to have a GOOD operator, you have plastic to cover plus the labor to cover it. Another thing is you better have enough cattle to keep the face fresh, a pile will have a lot bigger face than an bunker. Spoilage? Thats debatable but 5% loss would be about $3.50 a ton. |
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Kaukauna WI | d-man78, we gave up on our custom bagger(s) long ago. They never came on time. That's why we went to just dumping and packing and we never looked back. Now you couldn't bring me a bagger if it was free. Sorry, just my opinion. |
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Pine City, MN | 15 acre pad would be big enough for all the forages for a 6000-7000 cow dairy.. |
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S.C. Wisconsin | A lot depends on your situation, you have to have a well drained pad (in our case we have asphalt) or they will be a disaster. Also with our truck bagger we can bag 2.5 tons per minute so it doesn't hold up the chopper. Also we purchased one of those Fritsch clamp buckets last year and that made a huge difference in the feed out. Also we like the option of inventoried feed. We can separate lessor quality feed from prime quality feed and mix them stretching your prime feed to avoid a drop in milk production. Both systems work besides there are more than one way to skin a cat! |
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Kaukauna WI | But you bagger guys never come on time......forage quality decreases every day you are late. I'm just speaking for our area Ne WI baggers. Did you fellers know you can get govmit funding to build a concrete pad for feed? We didn't know that till this year. |
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Kansas | cousinit,
since you quit bagging and started piling it are you doing a driveover or a bunker/bales for bunker, or what??
Do you feel that you are having more losses or shrink w/o the bag?
If a drive over pile how much more spoilage vs a bunker? thanks |
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S.C. Wisconsin | No government help on my pad just put asphalt down over a period of 5 years. I know your frustrations waiting for equipment. We have 2 baggers that we do our own work and a core of customers around our area. I try to be up front with people and never make a promise that you can't keep about when you will be able to show up. We take care of our regular customers first though. Some custom operators get gready amd make promises that they can't keep. Another thing we have been very careful where we go with the dairy economy, rather have the machine sit than bust your butt for someone who doesn't pay. Been there and done that. |
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| If you got a hill, dig into it and build the walls outta dirt, if your gonna be putting up silage for many years into the future... its the way to go. Little spoilage, and a LOT safer and easier to pack than using bales. |
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Kaukauna WI | We have custom guys make a big pile, it is shaped like a bell curve, if you know what I mean (tall in the middle, and the sides taper off to nothing). No sides. No cement. Just limestone under it and plastic and tires over it. We take some off the face every day of course. Not much shrink but we don't measure it so I can't say for sure. But we don't haul much out, no. If we do, it's cuz it rains/snows a lot and the silage gets mixed in with the dirt/gravel/limestone. We had that with the bags, too. |
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Kaukauna WI | We are on totally flat area. We have one cement pad we paid for in the 90's. We found out this spring that the gov't will help pay for cement pads so we put in a request for help.....they go by who needs it the most, environmentally. Don't know if we will get help of not. If not, we will not cement it. |
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Kaukauna WI | d-78. Yes, there are people who don't pay their bills, that's for sure. Right now, there is no excuse as milk prices are decent. |
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Faunsdale, AL | Asphault surface will outlast the concrete under a silage pack. If it's done properly. I believe the Miner institute did some work with it. Also works well for resurfacing a concrete slab that's eaten up by silage so the gravel and reinforcment are coming out. |
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Any thoughts on setting up a silage pile?
