3 ton feed bin questions

Next year we are looking at raising 500 meat birds and 15 pigs. We currently buy our grain from a local farmer in 1000lb tote bags which works fine for us. Put the bags on a pallet, pick them off the trailer with the forks, move them around in the shed with the pallet jack... However I can still get feed cheaper if I buy a bigger quantity at once and would save time with not running half an hour each way to get feed a few times a year plus time spent moving the totes. I really only have room to store two totes at a time inside. A friend recently offered me a free 3 ton Chore Time feed bin complete with bottom auger and electric motor that is in great shape.

My questions are how easy is it to move one of these? It looks like I can take it apart into the stand and rings. Yes I bet it is easier to move it whole but I don't believe there would be a loader tractor at the location I am picking it up at where I could use that to tip it onto my trailer.

Now onto the pad. Looking around online I could find some spec's but not a good set of plans for a cement pad to put this thing on. I am in New England so we get freeze and thaw in the ground. I am thinking I will need to have more than just a pad on the ground and have some footings as well. Has anyone ever put down a pad for one of these that has some plans they could share?

For folks that have these, how do you move the feed to your animals? For now we use forks on the tractor and move the whole tote and scoop out of the tote into the feeders. I think I would need to still basically do the same thing with this bin but make up a wood box or find some sort of a tub and still move the feed to the animals with the truck or tractor from the bin. We pasture raise the animals so I cannot put the bin right next to the animals and vice versa.

I hate to pass up a free bin, but the system I have now is not terrible and works. I am looking to cut down on time spent dealing with feed and the bin seems like it will offer that in some aspects as well as the ability to buy feed a few cents a lb. cheaper. I am totally open to someone telling me this project will not net me those results if that has been your experience.

Thanks in advance for any help.

A 3 ton bin could be handled easily with a skid steer with pallet forks. As far as cement anything would work, honestly a disk blade under each post wouls work. Its only a 3 ton, if you think about it a 2 ring hog feeder is a ton and a quarter. We had a 6 ton 4 ring bean meal bin with disk blade under 4 posts and 2 corners wired to ground screws for 30 years.

Joe

For next to nothing at an auction I picked up an old seed tank from an air seeder, wagon style with 3 big wheels on it.
Cut a few holes in the sides, made slide doors for them and chutes to funnel the feed either into buckets or right onto the snow for the cows in the winter.
Auger in 200 bushel, close the lid and drag it wherever you need it.
Best to pull it with a tractor but I have used a 1-ton with a pintle hitch on back.

If left in a pasture a chain and bolt to lock the door is a must as critters will soon figure out how the doors open.

That is what I needed to hear! Did you get an auger to fill that bin with? We do not have an auger nor do I know anyone with one. The guy I buy feed from does not have a truck to deliver and fill a bin which is another issue I am finding. Smallest auger is $650 and about a 5 hour drive from me to pick up. There has to be another way to fill one of those but the more I look the more I realize a grain auger is the easiest choice.

We had just a 4 inch slab about the size of the legs with an anchor on each leg. The anchor was just an old lag hook from a telephone pole, stuck in the cement while it dried. It is still standing in the same place it was set up. Has been there since the late 70's. The bin has since rusted out pretty much. Should take it down and scrap it. The auger is the way to go for filling and a 4 inch auger would fill your tote or whatever you decide to use fine. Watch and old 6 inch transport augers go fairly cheap.
Watch Auction time on tractor house.

How tall and big around is that bin ? I ask because it may be possible to mount it to a trailer or old truck and then just drive it out to where you need to feed. Be really nice if you could get a feed delivery that could fill it for you. Around here all the feed companies have large trucks with augers on them for delivery.
Could always put the fed in a big gravity wagon too ?

I have driven past the bin and been given pictures but haven't been in person to measure it yet. I have been told it will fit on my 16' equipment trailer "no problem". I think it would be just a bit higher than my comfort level on a trailer. The wife and I split feeding chores 50/50 and we put at least the hogs on our least flat land. I would be a bit scared seeing her with something top heavy on our hills.

The guy we buy our feed from is another local farmer, hence no delivery truck. It is by far the cheapest price I can find and a good quality feed. We have 3 feed companies around here we could use but they are as much as .40 to .60 cents more per lb. and I would need the grain bin to get a delivery from them. I wouldn't bother with livestock if I had to pay that much more for feed on the scale we do it. That would surely cut our profit in half and I would not longer be claiming half the bacon for myself.

I think I could get a 4" unloading auger for one of these bins that is larger in size and it would work. I could a wheelbarrow tub at the based and just shovel feed into that to put into the bin. Yes, that would be some shoveling, but it would be a 1 day job and done for the season.

I rolled a 3 ton one onto my trailer by myself by hand. As for a pad, a simple floating concrete pad will be fine. 4" would be good, 6 would be better. Thats all we ever had under ours in the Iowa winters.
AaronSEIA

Your biggest concerns would be that the bin does not sink into the ground and that it does not blow over when empty. Does a 3 ton bin have four legs or six legs? Years ago some of those bins came new from the co-op with a 4X6 timber bolted across each pair of legs. Used railroad ties would weight more and be less expensive. Drill some angled holes through the timbers and drive angled stakes into the ground to anchor the bin to the ground.

You need to step back and look at how much feed you use each year. Then look at what kind of saving you will get storing 6000# over 2-1000# totes. I will bet that you can not pay for any type of bin, slab and auger with multiple years of feed savings.

It also sound like you currently haul the feed in the totes from the farmer. IF you do get the bin setup and an auger to fill the bin how are you going to get the feed from the farmer to your farm/auger????

What would maybe work better would be a smaller gravity wagon with a good tarp on it. A 100 bushel wagon will easily hold 4-5 ton of feed. You can pull it to your farmer friend or a feed mill either. Then when you get home you can pull it to where your feeding and load buckets right off the chute. Also fewer mouse/rat worries too. Smaller wagons can be bought for $300-500 on lighter wagon gears. You can make tarp bows out of steel conduit and buy a fitted tarp for less than $150 here.

You can also build a roof for a wagon out of sheet steel and wood. Used to be a lot of them around here when hogs where pastured farrowed. Pull the wagon to town and pickup your feed then park it along the road fence to feed across the fence.

I found a friend a regular feed gravity wagon a year ago. It had a single slope to the rear with a narrow door just right for five gallon buckets. It was on an IH running gear. $600 for it complete with tarp.

The bin itself is free from a friend. It is a 4 post bin. I am thinking I can put the bin on sonotubes of concrete which would cost about $300 in supplies. The farmer is about half an hour away, roughly 20 miles. Right now we take the equipment trailer and get 1 or 2 totes of feed at a time. The trailer in terms of size and weight could hold 6 totes or 3 tons easily (18 foot 10 ton trailer). It is just getting the grain from the tote into the bin that seems to be an issue.

I am concerned I can find a cheap enough wagon that is well maintained enough to make the drive. I think I would end up spending the same amount or less to get some sort of a grain auger set up to load the bin as I would getting a decent wagon. I likely would have to get the wagon shipped to me from NY or PA as there are none around here.

Savings - between getting the feed a bit cheaper it would also be less trips to go get feed. The bin also allows me to get feed from an outfit like Cargill if my farmer runs out of feed or one day stops doing what he is doing. My math says $200 savings per year on feed, fuel, etc. Time is the big savings. Both my wife and I work a 9-5 and farm on the side. We need to become more efficient at what we do and how we do it. I am factoring about 7-10 hours of time savings per season in going to get the feed. We would also save time doing feeding chores as now be use a tractor to bring the tote to the pigs. pasture. Again, time savings filling a couple 5 gallon pails, putting them in the truck, dumping them in the feeders. The time savings will allow more timely spraying on the crops, cultivating, planting, etc. as our livestock is all pasture raised so dealing with feed falls in the middle of heavy crop activities. More time for crop management should hopefully net higher yields and more profits.

4 legs - I have some pressure treated 8x8's left over from a water tank project that I could use to make a base. Then just lag bolt the bin to those is what I am thinking might work.

Something else that might work for you;

A trailer made from a pick up truck box with a high rise topper on it will hold a lot of feed.(3/4 ton axle and springs preferred)

I used one years ago for the same thing you are trying to do.
Cut a 2x2 hole in the roof of the topper for filling it and made a lid to keep it weatherproof.
Parked it right between the pig pen and chicken coop.

A piece of plywood and a couple of 2x4's at the back to make a deflector so you can open the door on the topper without everything dumping out, yet still enough room to scoop up feed with a 5 gal pail.