Latimer, Iowa (north central) | For that amount of storage I would use bags hands down.
Most of the automatic feeding systems/silo unloaders have age on them now and haven’t been used in years for a reason. We fed 1200 head out of “automatic silos” and 600 head with bags and a tmr. Everyone preferred the bags. The sub zero mornings following a Van Dale surface drive around, chipping walls, as an 8 year old cured me of every wanting to deal with silos again. We had 2 30x80 top unloads into a patz conveyor system. When it worked was fine but when it didn’t there was no trading out a tractor and getting feeding done. We also have a 24x80 foragestor bottom unload with a laidig. They Filled it once with ground ear corn and dad said they never considered it again for anything but shell corn. Said “anyone dumb enough to put silage in a bottom unload deserved what they got”. We used it for high moisture shell corn for the 25 years I was around it.
We used a bagger from farm show magazine. Was made by a Walder mfg in Wisconsin. Was a flat sheet bagger that you blew into a frame with the silage blower. Held about 3 ton a foot and didn’t have plastic underneath to get into wheels or bucket. Worked pretty good but took some finesse to fill well. Plastic was 40 foot wide flat sheets on a roll. Tuck edges under and frame held up to fill. Bags/sheet were half price of an ag bag and held 2-3 times as much.
Edited by Green Acres Guy 6/10/2023 11:47
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converting a stave silo to bottom unload
