Silos

Wondering why nobody is using silos any more, is it because the large round bales are easer to feed

Main reason is slow unload speed. If your feeding tons of silage a day a upright silo is just plain slow. Then add in the cost of keeping a unloader working makes silage bags and pits/bunkers the more attractive way of storing feed.

ya gotta be a farmer to fully understand,, there are a lot of silos being used in my area along with bunkers . my granpas cousins and uncles on both sides had and still use silos , my cousins in bardstown ky service and sell Pax and other silo eqiuipment , my dad hada big wooden silo when I was a tyke,. he pulled it over with his VAC CASE .. I am not a silo farmer, but I can state this ,, silos are taxt , bunkers are not in ind ,, silo unloaders can and do fail and silos can and do kill any seasoned repairman and sadly untrained farmers that find themselves in a instant dangerous life threatening situation, silos can develop poisonous gasses, that could kill instantly or give a body farmers lungs over time,, the bunkers can poison likewise ., successful silage making requires a lifetime of experience to do it rite ,it is very good feed .. sadly sometimes you just don't get a 2nd chance if you goof and poison the cows before it is too late to turn it around ,.thankfully that don't happen often , but it has happened.. yes round bales are simpler to feed but in essence more time consuming getting them from field to the cows for me ,silage is better,. quiker and you can really move some volume even with 50 yr old equipment as opposed to round bales ,,. and you don't need 3 curing days ..as the year progresses my cousins will fill their silos with wheat haylage ,alfalfa haylage , and finally corn silage and sudex ,.each time nearly drawing out the bottom as more is added to the top..you just cant hold the large volume like a bunker can ... you have to keep an eye on how these silos load and unload ,.a south wall to the sun will unload easily enuf while the north side will freeze hard as concrete ,not a common thing here in Louisville area ,,. but the folks 300 miles north of me gotta be careful , when they draw out a bunch too quikly and leave a bunch on the north face ,.if you are lucky it will thaw slowly and gently fall in harmlessly a wheel barraw at a time while you sleep ,, if the whole sundavich goes all at once it could blow out the side of a silo ,,.anything in harms way had better be rite with the man above if the silo collapes ,,. hope this helps you understand , I think few will disagree with my comments ,. didnt intend to do a essay , this is chemo day for the next 48hours and I am most comfortable writin instead of laying in bed ..

maybe where you live they arent using them but tons of them are still in use.

Hi Ken . 01gentdc and JD Seller have outlined very well why tower silos sit unused . I could add that many towers you may see are too old and no longer safe to fill . Stave silos built in the 60's and 70's are really in need of being taken down . Towers hat held only high moisture corn can be fine inside , but silos that held corn silage , can be eaten away by the acid. Stave silos that where filled with silage that was too wet , and ran , can be eroded between the staves. This will make the silo leak air , and spoil the silage , as well as weaken the tower.
most old silos have old unloaders that are woren out , and a new unloader can cost upwards of 30 grand , and you can build a new bunker with more capacity for the same money.I know of hundreds of towers that sit unused in my area ,, and can see a dozen or more from my home farm that are no longer filled. Bruce

Load speed of a bunker silo is much faster than upright as well. Twenty seconds to dump a truck or dump wagon vs. what 6-8 min to blow a load up?

Would you like to fix this? Only need an air supply so to breath!
My post over a week ago

Bunkers or bags are quicker and more flex able, everything gets bigger in ag its easy to add another bag or two if you need more feed.

Property taxes have gotten huge as town folk figured out they can vote in new schools and have farmers pay for them; a bunker is just a flat spot, a bag isn't taxed, a silo will be taxed for many many decades use it or not..... If you aren't in farming you don't realize the tax implications of everything you do......

Paul

(quoted from post at 04:37:13 05/12/16) Bunkers or bags are quicker and more flex able, everything gets bigger in ag its easy to add another bag or two if you need more feed.

Property taxes have gotten huge as town folk figured out they can vote in new schools and have farmers pay for them; a bunker is just a flat spot, a bag isn't taxed, a silo will be taxed for many many decades use it or not..... If you aren't in farming you don't realize the tax implications of everything you do......

Paul

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Yeah, why people can't understand why farmers in the East don't put up equipment sheds.

There are a lot of them still in use around here, but I hadn't seen a new one built in 30 years - until last week.
I saw where a guy built a new barn, along with three new silos - looked to be 20'x60's. Tough time to be spending money like that in the dairy business..

Others highlighted many reasons. For me they were part of the landscape the old ones had character and were unique. I liked to see them like old water pump windmills. Guess they been replaced buy cell towers.

Don't forget to mention the joy of keeping a silo unloader working in extended periods of -20F weather. We fed off of a pile and didn't open up the silo until around mid Feb. until the coldest weather was over.

FIL got out of milking in the late '70s and pulled his down to save on taxes. Didn't go to waste, though. The staves became trusses for the new 4 bay garage. Somebody bought the cypress roof boards to build a deck. It was originally from the Sears farm and ranch catalog.

JD and a couple of others pretty much hit the nail on the head. Doesn't take many years of working with uprights and silo unloaders in winter weather to learn to despise them and consider them the bane of your existence. They were okay for 40-50 cow operations. They are next to worthless for 100 cow and larger operations. The usable life is relatively short for concrete stave types also.

Yep, same thing here, see a lot of em sitting empty with bags on the ground. Only a couple of die hards here still using em.

Rick

When my dad was still farming and milking cows, we used to grind high moisture ear corn in the silo (used an old Bear Cat hammermill). Took about two weeks, picking and grinding. Started using it in the early part of the year if I remember correctly. Usually used the silage pile through the winter and have it done by March 1st if possible to avoid the spring mud. A lot of time with ground ear corn and a silo unloader, you could run into a problem with a pile of ground husk and the drive wheel getting "stuck".

Not only the cement staves, but the WOOD doors and the STEEL ladder parts...

You guys keep talking about silage unloaders ,when I and my brother were young we had two silage forks , that was our unloaders and they didn't break down much

Mennonites......

same here in Northern Indiana. alot in use alot not. there are alot of the poured concrete center unloading type here built in the early-mid 1970s. most of those are not is use.

Some use both bag and upright. didn't want to put up another silo so they feed out of bag in good weather and flip the switch and feed from the silo into an auto feed bunk. he feeds the bag into the same bunk and takes 10 trips with the skid loader to do it. A TMR would be another story of course.

one fellow fills the upright then builds a pile on the ground that is covered. then once the upright is empty about now they put the pile in the silo. i think they like flipping a switch to auto feed the heifers.

silos are nice in that regard. one friend uses only uprights for his cows (sells silage out of bag) and runs them into 2 auto feed bunks. they do alot of other chores while they are auto feeding. but as others have said, they only have about 30-40ish head

My opinion-silos are a major pain in the backside.Many farmers have either pulled them over or aren't useing them.However many Amish farms in NNY have put new roofs on them and are putting them into use.

(quoted from post at 06:00:24 05/12/16) Wondering why nobody is using silos any more, is it because the large round bales are easer to feed

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I guess I can be classified as a die-hard then because we just built one last year, it worked with the system we have. It's 20'x92' poured concrete. When guessing on filling times, be sure to consider packing times. Last year we cut in 35 acres of corn silage in 9 hrs one day (filled the new silo and half filled another one). Yes silo unloaders have a lifespan as do loader tractors.

But no one wants to buy a used silo unloader, it is easy to sell a used loader
tractor.

What, you guys don't like climbing 75 feet up the outside with a pitch fork strapped to your back to level out the silage when its full?

I remember the day we were replacing the unloader chain and I was 12 or 13. I was trying to slowly lower it down and it slipped free. That took out 3 of the metal steps on the doors. That was a fun trip down! My parents are still running 4 silos on the 120 head dairy farm. Its an old barn, no room for mixer wagons. Now, the neighbors built a big fancy parlor with bunkers and all that fun stuff. That all sits empty now as they went bankrupt. So, I just get to go over and play in the silos a few times a year when they breakdown.

Big reason is the cost to put one up and maintain and they don't hold a lot compared to a bunker

Once a week. Climb up and scrape the walls, lower the spout and stay chain for the ring drive.

One thing I will say of all the silos out there, they knew how to make them stand as there are a lot that didnt lean or go over all these years later.