Thunder Bay, Ontario, Great White North | I've been fighting with this same issue for a while. I switched 100% to bags last year and like the system but feed out is something I don't have fully solved yet. One employee does an ok job with a smooth bucket on a farm loader, little spillage and basically no shovelling. The other guy who does most of the feeding was making a mess of the bags until he started using the pallet forks on the skidsteer to loosen things up before scooping up with the loader. It works ok but not ideal because we are now starting 3 machines just to feed everyday and it is still pretty slow. Using the skidsteer to load is challenging because the plastic gets tore up, and when the plastic has snow on it the skidsteer is almost useless. My employees would rather use the 6410 to load with but it's getting tired and the work has been hard on the loader. My latest plan is to use a wheel loader and a versa - style clam bucket and sell the big skidsteer, and park the loader tractor and just use it for jobs for which it is designed. Most loaders on farm tractors don't stand up to much abuse, thus I've been shopping for some better iron. All that being said, the base under the bags makes as much difference as anything when feeding. I have a few bags on pavement, it isn't difficult to keep things neat. The bags on a temporary pad that is basically mud and rocks I don't think there is any way to load them without a bunch of mess and hand labor. I wouldn't give up the bags on this farm. The benefits of harvest efficiency and feed quality outweigh the feeding trouble and waste 'here'. |
Silage Bag users, how do you load feed out of bag?
