953 nut 51,736 #1 Posted March 13 A salute to the Silo Dairy farmers work with nutritionists who create healthy, balanced diets that are specific to the cows’ needs – based on their age, whether they’re milking, whether they’ll soon have a calf, and many other factors. Some dairy cows eat as much as 100 pounds of food per day. The ingredients often include human food byproducts, grain, a mixture of grass hay, alfalfa hay, as well as corn and grass silage that is grown on the farm, harvested green and stored in an anaerobic chamber. Fifty percent or more of a dairy cow’s food intake is silage. Woolford (1984) defined silage as “the product formed when grass or other material of sufficiently high moisture content, liable to spoilage by aerobic microorganisms, is stored anaerobically”. Silage is produced by ensilage, that is, the placing of crop material inside a vessel or a structure called a silo. Excavations at the Egyptian town of Guft show trench silos used around 1500 BC. A silo is a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are used in agriculture to store fermented feed known as silage. Three types of silos are in widespread use today: tower silos, bunker silos, and bag silos. Tower silos are the tall cylindrical items we are accustom to seeing attached to dairy barns thought the countryside. They contain corn and/or grass silage which will make up the majority of a cow’s dilate and are usually unloaded from the top of the pile, originally by hand using a silage fork—which has many more tines than the common pitchfork; 12 vs 4—and in modern times using mechanical unloaders. An advantage of tower silos is that the silage tends to pack well due to its own weight, except in the top few feet. I can recall many winter days when a pickax was needed to break up the frozen silage in the winter and the fermented silage by springtime was probably ready to be distilled, cows seemed to love it. The bunker silo is an improvement on the Egyptian trench silos use in 1500 BC. Bunker silos are trenches, usually with concrete walls, that are filled and packed using tractors and loaders. The filled trench is covered with a plastic tarp to make it airtight. These silos are usually unloaded with a tractor and loader. They are inexpensive and especially well-suited to very large operations. Bag silos are heavy plastic tubes, usually around 8 to 12 ft in diameter, and of variable length as required for material to be stored. They are packed using a machine made for the purpose, and sealed on both ends. They are unloaded using a tractor and loader or skid-steer loader. The bag is discarded in sections as it is torn off. Bag silos require little capital investment and considerably less labor the conventional tower silo. The silage is harvested using a Round Baler and the bales are placed end to end where a device holds each bale off the ground as the bag is slipped over it. The farm I grew up on is now using the bag silo system. 5 5 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ed Kennell 35,809 #2 Posted March 13 Thank for all the great info Richard. Just a reminder for members attending the Big Show. One of the few remaining round barns is located a few miles from the show. It is now a yuppy farm market, but back in the day it was a dairy farm and the circular barn was built around a central silo with some very interesting construction. It is worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood .The Historic Round Barn & Farm Market 4 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JoeM 7,643 #3 Posted March 13 42 minutes ago, Ed Kennell said: It is worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood plus the cherries are ripe too. I like to stop at the place below there and pick up some to take home. As good as you can get 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sailman 1,129 #4 Posted March 13 Growing up on a dairy farm I have lots of memories of climbing that ladder (covered on the inside) and using the silage fork to unload the needed corn silage for the days feeding. There were "doors / hatches" located at each stage that would be removed as the silage level was reduced. 3 hours ago, 953 nut said: I can recall many winter days when a pickax was needed to break up the frozen silage in the winter Been there done that.... There was always the occasional tragedy in the neighborhood when someone, often a youngster, would go up into the silo unannounced before it was safe. The result was a death from the gasses. The canary in the coal mine.... Also, there was the standing joke about the farmer who died in his round barn.... he couldn't find a corner...to take a dump in.... 1 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
davem1111 1,932 #6 Posted March 13 3 hours ago, Sailman said: Growing up on a dairy farm I have lots of memories of climbing that ladder (covered on the inside) and using the silage fork to unload the needed corn silage for the days feeding. There were "doors / hatches" located at each stage that would be removed as the silage level was reduced. Been there done that.... There was always the occasional tragedy in the neighborhood when someone, often a youngster, would go up into the silo unannounced before it was safe. The result was a death from the gasses. The canary in the coal mine.... Also, there was the standing joke about the farmer who died in his round barn.... he couldn't find a corner...to take a dump in.... I clicked on the laughing emoji but obviously I'm not laughing at the part about people dying in silos - that's not funny at all. I have heard the joke about taking a dump (or peeing) in a round barn before. I think it was from my Dad, could have been my grandpa but he was a bit too proper to tell a joke like that, I think. I'm a big fan of silos and have a collection of pictures I've taken over the years... If I see an old one I try to get a picture of it, even if it's during a drive-by. Here's one: 6 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ebinmaine 63,176 #7 Posted March 13 The BBT is quite fond of the idea of silos as homes. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beap52 587 #9 Posted March 14 I graduated high school from Lathrop, a small town in northwest Missouri about 40 miles north of Kansas CIty. "In the early 1900's Lathrop was know as the mule capital of the world and became the largest mule dealership in the world. During the Boer War in 1901-02, approximately 170,000 mules where handled by Guyton and Harrington. Almost all of these mules where shipped from the Lathrop location over seas to their final destination in South Africa. By 1918, they had 18 buildings on 4,700 acres of land with 150 men maintaining up to 50,000 mules." (Inside the quotes are various parts of articles found on the internet that I copied from.) I gave the history because part of the Guyton Harrington farm structures were still present in the 1970's and 80's and I was hired to do repairs to some of them. One of them was a huge round cement water tank that was filled using a windmill. One of my jobs was to make and install a wooden oak "connecting rod" when it broke between the windmill on top and the pump on ground. That was a pretty easy job. One time the owners ask me to make a lid for the water tank. In places, the cement was flaking off the sides of the tank exposing the rebar inside. The original lid which was probably 30" square was missing. Up the side of the water tank was a wooden ladder. I made a cover, then me and my helper proceeded to climb the ladder hefting the lid. I suppose the tank was 25 to 30 (probably more) feet high. We were absolutely wore out getting the lid up there and had to stop more than once to rest. We rested a corner of the lid on a 1x4 rung with me above and my helper below. Once on the top all we laid the lid over the access hole. The owners asked me to inspect the cement top of this tank that is (very conservatively estimated sitting here in my recliner) to be 25 feet across . The cement lid had several holes in it where the rebar had rusted and the old cement deteriorated and fell inside--to the point that there was NO WAY I was going to get on top of that thing! That was one of the scarier projects I did. That tank supplied the water to the Guyton Harrington farm and I was told water lines were laid to watering troughs scattered around the farm. The last time I passed the farm, someone with equipment that I could only dream of having access to had built a roof over the water tank. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
