Corn silage harvest DONE!!! Some pictures.

We just finished corn silage today. We chopped 262 loads since Saturday morning. I figure we put up about 3200 tons, chopped about 130 acres of corn. It is yielding real good. Filled four up right silos and four 10x300 silage bags. Moisture is right at 55%. The corn looks dryer than that but that is what it tested and it "feels" right too. LOL

Had a lot of little break downs this year. Started out with six forage wagons and finished with only three working. That PO me big time. I go over them with a fine tooth comb and still had troubles. Two of them are just bearings. The other one ruined a gear box. Broke it in pieces. I hope the wrecked one I have for spare parts still has that gear box on it. The JD 716A wagons are getting pricey for some parts.

Even had some tractor issues too. The JD 6400 had the PTO solenoid quit. I switched the Diff lock one to the PTO to finish. The JD 4010 radiator started leaking. The 68 JD 4020 had the bypass water pipe start to leak. The most serious one is the JD 72 4020. The feed auger on the newer NH 60 blower broke off right at the bearings. It fed itself into the blower. Ruined it completely. Only 5 years old. The shear bolts sheared but not before almost killing the tractor. It must have twisted the PTO disk up. The PTO does not work and I have parts of springs and stuff in the clutch housing. Just replaced all the clutches and pressure plate 500 hours ago. Something is torn up.

The chopper(JD 5830) never stopped and the two pull in tractors (JD 4450s) never had any issues either.

Well the JD 4040 I just bought ran the blower the last two days without any issue. I hated to put it on the blower. I just got it a few weeks ago. I am the second owner. It has 4900 hours on it. Open station with flat top fenders. BE looking for one for a few years. Finally found this one. Have not had time to check it out much. Ran it yesterday and changed the oil/filters last night while it was hot. Sure runs the blower well. I like to have no cabs on the tractor at the blower. It just makes it so much easier to turn everything on and off.

Looking East at some of my pasture ground between two corn fields.



Good view of how tall the corn is. It is wetter than the fodder looks. I like mine a little dryer than the dairy guys do. It works better for my rations.



You could just see the wagon roofs over the corn in places. It made finding the chopper fun at times.



The final product.



My "New" toy. It really runs and drives nice. Paint is pretty good too. One dent in the top front on the hood.



One real nice thing is that my oldest Grand Son and Grand Daughter both helped in the harvest this year. These are the two that just got out of the service. They have been away for the last ten years or so. He got back from Afganistan in July and was discharged in Late August. He already has a REALLY good job lined up. He starts in a few more weeks. My Grand Daughter just got home from Germany two weeks ago. She has several good jobs offered to her too. She does not know what she really want to do just yet. She smart so she will get it all figured out. LOL.

When I got back from overseas 36 yrs. ago I couldn"t wait to get on a tractor again.

Looking good. We finished last week. Five
uprights and two bunks. Started out with six
wagons, and wound up with four. Big Sam mashed
the front of one of the Millers into the blower
tractor tire at a trench, and one of the 716's had
a shield in the unloading chain kind of wrap
around the chain. Oh, and Sam also caught the
blower tub some with the Miller. Bit of BFH
time...

As for horsepower, the 2-105 was on a blower and
started blowing oil out of something in the back.
We don't know why yet- hose or line ro what, but I
came over to my place and we put the old 806 on
that blower. Old girl was flawless. It might be
almost fifty, but it still runs good. 70 ft silo
and a Case 600 blower, and it just sat there and
ran all day. Close to 200 acres total, and about
400 loads.

Reading your post....it just generated a really good feeling about how things are working out, despite all the tractor issues (i can relate to tractors failing at silo filling time, (like blowing the radiator while punching haylage into a 90 foot harvestore)..wow! things shut down so fast, and then where to find another big tractor......but especially about the younguns coming back ok, like my dau and her hubby....in May and Aug.

I am sure you are glad it is all done. I have 30 acres of 3rd cut grass
still to do in round bales and that is me finished. It is always nice to
get atarted and great to get finished!. It always seems no matter
how prepared you are something lets you down......That is
machinery for you!
Sam

Sounds like the older things had age related issues.

Well now at least you know the 4040 you bought was good. If you can buy one and put it right to work you know it was worth it.

if there wasnt a break down or two it wouldnt be silo filling time. i will say work well done

you got a nice farm complete with hillside character some nice equipment jd ,,.but i would not trade my headaches for yours any day ,my neighbor and I trade work and expertise alot and that helps ...,seems .I am broke down somewhere every day,,. stuff happens ,, no matter how much we try to stay ahead of it ... just thank GOD You have the MIND and Intestinal fortitude to Stand in the Gap and stand Your Ground and Make a Differrence .... May God Continue to Bless your efforts

I really enjoyed seing the pictures. I wish you had taken a video of the 5830 chopping. Does that rig belong to you or is it a custom chopper guy running?

I've tried figuring out how to justify "silage". When I figure all the costs involved, it get HIGH! Silage today is a high energy input crop. Look at the machinery required, the fuel used, maintenance on that equipment, not the mention the cost of the equipment itself. Then, you need a silo. The bagged silage seems to work out better in terms of storage cost per ton. I've said that silage bales and bagged silage are "poor mans" silos.

What do you think (perhaps you know) your final cost is per ton to harvest corn silage?

Thank you for the pic. They were great . Brought back memories from my fall silo filling days over east of you in Stephenson cty,Il. Yes we had a few break downs , but not many. clint

Great pictures. The idea of cutting silage still blows my mind.There are a lot of old dary farms and silos here in central Ga but they have been out of business for years.Silage is something that my family was never around and so I never got to actually see it done firsthand.It is still hard for me to believe that you can put something that green and wet into a bin with no air circulating on it and not wind up with a molded smoking mess! Down here you cant hardly pile up green weeds without having them start smoking after a couple of days.What does the silage look like when it comes out of the silo? Is it still green or has it gone through a heat and turned brown? Do you mix it with something else or feed it strait?

Trying to figure it on a first year basis, it can be expensive. I started with some borrowed wagons and an old 717 NH one row chopper, and a trench silo in the side of a hill with a dirt floor. If you figure the material at $400 per acre to plant, that's $20 per ton. The machinery can cost a few hundred to start with old machinery, but newer machinery and storage can be more expensive, and spread over ten years or more, so it's not that bad. With hay at $200 a ton, corn starts getting cheap, even with a lot of machinery investment.

I did a little time putting equipment together at a JD dealer after the AF. They had me drive a 4040 off the side of a low boy trailer. I never would have guessed that they would have unloaded them that way. I have always been fond of the 4040 since then.
SDE

That is some super looking corn and 3200 tons in 6 days is pretty impressive. We just got started yesterday and the corn isn't nearly as good or nearly as dry.

The JD 5830 is joint owned between myself, my brother and my oldest two sons. Four way split. We have a 10 foot Kemper head for corn silage. They already have switched the heads over to a JD 693 (6x30) and are starting ground ear corn. My brother and my sons all feed ground ear corn. I use corn silage and hayledge.

The cost per ton to harvest it and put it in the silos runs right around $10 a ton. Into the silage bags it is around $12-14 per ton. This is just maintenance, labor, fuel, and capitol interest.

The uprights silos are cheaper because of the longevity. Higher up front cost but longer life.

If I was starting from scratch it would be bags or bunker silos. Since I already have the uprights I may well use them. They are nice in the spring when it is muddy. And also in the summer when I am feeding fewer tons per day. The bags are great in the winter on frozen ground.

That's very interesting. What do you do if one of the four owners of the chopper has considerably more acres than another?

You say you have a 10' head on the chopper. How does that work out with 30 inch rows? That would mean you could theoretically cut 5 rows at a time. Your pictures seemed to indicate you were cutting six rows at a time. Do you use the same chopper to harvest your haylage?

I think you've indicated you feed cattle. By the way, the feeder cattle market looks like it could get insanely high with the tight supplies coupled with the lower corn market. It's possible that we could see feeders go to heights we never imagined.....especially if the big money boys decide to jump on this thing.

All the best. Randall

(quoted from post at 03:45:12 09/27/13) That's very interesting. What do you do if one of the four owners of the chopper has considerably more acres than another?

You say you have a 10' head on the chopper. How does that work out with 30 inch rows? That would mean you could theoretically cut 5 rows at a time. Your pictures seemed to indicate you were cutting six rows at a time. Do you use the same chopper to harvest your haylage?

I think you've indicated you feed cattle. By the way, the feeder cattle market looks like it could get insanely high with the tight supplies coupled with the lower corn market. It's possible that we could see feeders go to heights we never imagined.....especially if the big money boys decide to jump on this thing.

All the best. Randall

Click to expand...

On the ownership of the chopper. We keep track of the acres each of us run. Then we keep track of all repairs. We divide the repair cost into a per acre basis. Then we just settle up among ourselves.

With the 10 foot header we take 4 x30 or 3 x36 rows when chopping corn.

The feeder cattle market is getting stupid. I know a fellow that gave $2 a pound for some six weight cattle. HE is stupid. He can never break even on those cattle.

I have already bought enough calves for the next 8-10 months. I bought 900 4 weight calves in late spring. I then had them summer pastured in SD close to where I bought them. They will be coming off grass in 2-3 weeks. I also have some calves bought in GA that will be shipped the first of Nov. Then you add in my own calves we should have enough to feed for now.

The fools can bid themselves into the poor house. They bid most of the profit out of rented farm ground and now that same attitude is taking all the profit out of the cattle market.