TMR wagons, long, need advice, lol

Sparktrician · Jun 27, 2013

Dad and I are considering adding a TMR wagon of some type to our operation. We raise beef cattle and feed out our calves, about 50 brood cows, and all our own feeders.

We in the past have fed the brood cows round bales of hay. Last year due to the drought, we chopped our corn and put it in silage bags. We fed the silage last winter with what hay we had made.

We also thru the summer green chop hay/grass to feed to the cows.

This spring we laid down a bag of haylage, and plan to lay down 2 - 4 bags of corn silage this fall (planted corn just for silage)

Is a TMR feedwagon (vertical?)that grinds the bales also our best option, or is a Horizontal TMR better? I think I can grind round bales with our chopper with the hay head.....I am going to attempt this after while to see how it goes.

Type, brand, and any other reccomendations are greatly appreciated! Thanks, Mike

Nebraska Cowman · Jun 27, 2013

Unless you have poor quality hay the cows won't eat i would let them grind their own (it ain't like they have anything else to do) I hire my hay ground and it costs me about $3 a bale. There is no way I can justify owning equipment to grind my own for 150 cows. For silage I'd recommend a forage wagon. You don't need a mixer wagon for that. I ended up buying a 4 auger mixer because I was feeding ground cornstalks and had to mix wet distillers with it. But i still hate the thing. If I never have to use it again it will suit me fine. I like to watch cows eat hay off the ground.

Bigdaddy4430 · Jun 27, 2013

I have a Penta TMR and it works great.Although it would grind up a rd bale I choose to hire a tub grinder to come in and grind instead.Simply for the fact that I can grind 40 rds in about an hr.vs. the tmr and the 20 min. /bale.The beautiful thing about a tmr is the feed options are wide open.

Nate V. IA · Jun 27, 2013

I would hire the bales ground and just use a feed wagon. The guy that grinds my hay charges by the ton and its a 20 ton min., takes less than an hour to set up and grind 20 bales. He can grind it with the netwrap for sure, and maybe twine on the bale, something you wouldn't want to do in your TMR wagon.

You could by a new kelly ryan feed wagon for the same money that a 10 year old TMR wagon that has been use 4 hours a day everyday, most likely by someone that didn't care about what junk fell in it, tires, concrete chunks ect. ect.

Nate

johnwayne360 · Jun 27, 2013

explain the $3/bale..around here the custom guys charge 300/hr with an hour minimum. I dont think I could dump 100 bales per hour much less grind them..

KLS · Jun 27, 2013

I toured a 2500+ cow dairy once, they had a tub grinder that made a JD 8560 struggle, only took a few (ten at the most) seconds to make a roundbale disapear. It was very impressive to watch, they were feeding the grinder with a front end loader/grapple, one guy removing net-wrap other one filling the grinder.

Down under farmer · Jun 27, 2013

We have a seko horizontal tmr wagon on our dairy paid for itself in 1st year with out doing any thing different from when we used the forage wagon for feeding silage just in milk gain and saved a lot of feed. Its 17 cubic meter and will hold 4 4x5 round bales of hay/stubble and chop the 1st three up by the time you cut the strings and dump them in if the knifes are in good condition. The longer it runs for the more it chops it down but we run it around 5 mins or so a bale. If you put hay in 1st then silage grain and concentrates it only needs a couple mins to blend it together. The options open up along way with a tmr wagon and they do save feed. I have cut corn stalks up an the drought with a bit of silage mostly for a bit of taste and smell and they left hardly anything in the troughs. As long as there is a hand full of animals on this farm the mixer will be in the shed just in case.

fixerupper · Jun 27, 2013

You can grind the bales with your chopper if you quarter them with a chain saw first and then pitch them in the chopper. I did just that with some old bales back in my younger days. It'll keep you warm on a cold day. LOL. One bit of advice; grass hay wants to wrap around the drive sprocket on the chain saw and will take out the crankshaft seal so be careful. Alfalfa hay is no problem and is actually kind of fun. The bale easily opens up for you. Jim

Nebraska Cowman · Jun 28, 2013

I can dump 100 bales an hour in the tub.(or darn close to it) But it does keep me busy. Oh yeah, The guy that grinds for me can grind 2 bales a minute. I can't keep the tub full with one loader. Most guys feed with two loaders but I work alone.

johnwayne360 · Jun 28, 2013

wow..I was looking at renting a small grinder for doing 30 bales a month..The guys quoted me $10/bale plus I had to use my own tractor. I decided it was cheaper to feed in rings at that price. Maybe it would pay to get the 300/hr guy and hire a second loader. I ll have to do the math on that one..

TMR wagons, long, need advice, lol

Sparktrician

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Nebraska Cowman

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Bigdaddy4430

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Nate V. IA

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johnwayne360

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KLS

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Down under farmer

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fixerupper

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Nebraska Cowman

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johnwayne360

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