Silo filling

NY 986 · Sep 2, 2009

Silo filling time is right around the corner. We have not had cows on this farm in a while and therefore we have not filled in a while. Used to be able to find somebody that needed a hand but those guys are gone now.
The point is I always found this a fairly enjoyable activity and miss it (when things are going right). My best memories were when I was a kid. Did not have any responsibility to help and my parents were very safety minded to not let me too close. I thought the smell of fresh corn silage was the best thing there was. The noises of the equipment were music (now I reach for the hearing protection aids). The old IH cut and throw chopper could be heard for miles so you could tell where dad was working. I had fun climbing up on the IH forage wagon when it was full (they had factory ladders) and playing. I would not be up there more than a minute or two before dad would come looking for me and have me stand with an adult before the action started.
Dad's temperment was pretty good as I don't remember a really wet fall, the corn was to his satisfaction, and the equipment generally ran without a problem.
Anybody got any stories to share?

Sid · Sep 2, 2009

We used to fill trench silos. We used wagons with a false end gate. A tractor stayed at the silo to drag silage of the wagons and if lucky had help spreading it with a fork. He would then pack it down with the tractor. We would swap work from farm to farm. We had a WD and the other farmers would want Dad to unload wagons and pack silage. It was a big day when my Uncle said Sid can use my WC to drag wagons. Toward the end when thing started changing, Dad bought a chopper and we would borrow as many wagons as we could. Dad would chop, I would drag wagons out of the field. When wagons were all filled, Dad would unhook the chopper. Then I would move wagons around he would drag the load off pack it and go another round. When it came milk time, I would go milk and Dad would stay and unload spread and pack the last loads of the day. In the mornings Dad would milk while I greased checked oil and gas. I would be back to help clean barn and milkers. We would eat breakfast and go at it again.

Bill(Wis) · Sep 2, 2009

IH came out with a chopper in 1948 (their first one) that was very poorly engineered. It had a tiny litle blower on it and it was basically designed like an old silo filler. It took so much power to run it that it was almost useless. Neighbors bought one (PTO powered) and they used a Massey Harris 44 special to power it in nuetral and hooked a John Deere B with a creeper gear in front to tow it. There they went across the field at maybe 1/2 mph and the Massey running wide open. It took a long time to get their silos filled. My dad wanted none of that but about a year later he bought a new John Deere chopper which didn't require even half as much power to run. What an engineering flop that IH was. It cost more than the JD, too. No wonder they're out of business.

Don c · Sep 2, 2009

Can't remember name of stuff we put in the auger when filling silo, seems like it may have been black sorgum. Had a 55 gal. barrel hanging above auger and had the small cap off and it ran in, cows really liked that...

Goose · Sep 2, 2009

One of my brothers-in-law told me once that when he was a kid, at silo filling time this dad would go to the local sale barn and buy an old crowbait horse for $20.

He would put the horse in the silo and begin blowing silage in. Naturally the horse would tromp around to keep on top of the silage and would pack it in the process. When the silo was full, with the horse on top, his dad would take a .30-.30, shoot the horse off the top of the silo, make tankage out of him, and feed him to the hogs.

A gal from the local Humane Society got wind of it, came out, and threw a two hour tantrum. Her tantrum went in one ear and out the other. Next year it was business as usual.

thurlow · Sep 2, 2009

We also filled (mostly) trench silos (silage pits). We (my Dad) did custom harvesting from the mid-50s thru the mid '80s, within the county. We used false end-gate trailers and our 'pit' tractor had a rear-mounted blade to spread the silage; it pretty much ran all the time.........packing. We had 3 different A-C cutters through the years, which also used "J" cut-and-throw knives. I loved to run the thing; when everything was 'right', could cut as many as 8 loads per hour. You could hear the machine 'moan' from anywhere in the community. The remains of the last cutter is sitting over here in a fence row..........

kyhayman · Sep 2, 2009

My best friend, next door neighbor fills one and usually bags 3-4 bags every year. Its one of my favorite times. Lots of us will take a tractor overr to help ferry silage wagons to the silo.

NY 986 · Sep 2, 2009

Our silo is 50ft upright. Had an IH table blower to fill with (in those days) and that was pretty interesting, also. It maxed out the M with the kerosene fuel pistons, manifold. If one the neighbor's larger tractors were not busy, one of them would show up for blower duty.
I talk of everything in terms of being old. But back then most everything was new or near new here.

D Slater · Sep 2, 2009

Sure do remember those days. Didn't get out much with cows to milk back then so don't know if it was a local thing or not how it was done. We used 50 es model flat bed trucks to haul with, 16 to 20 foot beds and sideboards. Shute on chopper was turned so trucks run alongside when loading. Steel framed pull back board was in from of bed with 2 winch cables fastened to a 2 inch pipe at rear of bed with ends on it to hook the pull back gear motor. Silage was pulled to rear and into a JD belt driven auger blower. Winch had to be hooked and unhooked every load along with the pull back boards drug back to front. Used 2 JD choppers with engines. Continental and wisconsin, continental got used the most, because the wisconsin used twice the gas and if it died during use it took up a lot of time getting it going agian. Both were hand crank. Due to iregular fields in the valleys here a swath was usualy cut through the middle of fields by hand and put in piles to get started without wasting any corn, then fed into the chopper by hand. Lot of labor back then but didn't have time to think about it. For me I think 67 or 68 was the last silage year.

Anonymous-0 · Sep 2, 2009

I don't think there are any dairymen filling upright silos much anymore around here. I used to help a guy do it back in the 70's just about the time he switched his uprights to high moisture ground ear corn.

Wilson · Sep 2, 2009

neighbors M would not push as much up the pipe so he used our cockshutt 40 on blower

El Toro · Sep 2, 2009

It was around 1950 when we started using a field chopper pulled by a Farmall M. A man that did custom silo filling was hired. He had 2 trucks to haul the silage. It always took about 3 weeks
when we filled silo. Had to cut the corn by hand and haul it to the silage cutter. Hired extra help too. It took them 3 days to fill both silos
using the chopper. We had a 10-20 to run the blower. I was still in high school and would be in the silo tramping if it ran into a weekend.
Always like watching those cows eat that silage.
They even wore grooves in the mangers from their licking. Hal

Tom in TN · Sep 2, 2009

NY 986,

My family worked on a dairy farm when I was growing up back in the 1950's so that meant that all of us worked for the owner.

I loved silos and especially silo filling time. The sounds and smells are still fresh in my mind of both loading and unloading the silos.

Also, I explored the universe in my "space ship" when the silo was empty. That was, of course, after I chased the barn owls out of the empty silo.

Thanks for the memories.

Tom in TN

gitrib · Sep 2, 2009

I can remember back in the 30s my dad had a big wooden silo that he filled with corn silage. Herb Simmons had a Papec silo filler that he pulled wit a JD D. I can remember cutting the corn with a corn binder and hauling it to filler. Every once in a while some one would losd the filler to heavy and old JD D just spun the belt off. There was a lot of @#%& and then the blower pipe had to be cleaned out. One night one of the hired hands failed to shut a gate and one old cow got out on the road a drunk game roaring down then road in his car. Caught the old girl right on th right front end. It thru her around to the side of the car and she broke the side out and filled the car with &&&&& Sherrif came and hauled the guy off Then had a wrecker come and gather up the car. It we one of those wooden framed cars. Had to be between 1932 & 38
gitrib

Wheat Farmer · Sep 2, 2009

At first we would make the upright ones out of bale wheat straw. But once in awhile they would get air through the bales and catch unfire. Then we did the pit type, but above the ground with a wide row of bales on each side, and packed it with a WD9 which I still have. Loved to feed it in the winter and stick our hands in it to warm them up. This was is the 40's and 50's. Wished I still had the blower to chop hay for the Alpacas.

farmerjohn · Sep 2, 2009

I always liked silo filling as a kid. Dad had hired hands cut the corn stalks with corn knives and load them on a flatbed wagon, hauled them to the Papec silage cutter driven by belt with the Super C Farmall, filled a 10 by 27 foot Indiana silo. They had a fill pipe inside also, it was 3 foot long sections linked together with 2 little chains so it was flexible and a guy would move it around to spread the silage in the silo as it filled. Even though it was the 1960's the farm was a little behind the times equipment-wise. Still have the silage cutter and fill-pipes in the barn. Grandpa put up the silo in 1917, it was guaranteed to last 25 years. Filled it the last time in 1985, pulled it down in 1991, used the staves for flooring in a new workshop.

johndeereman · Sep 2, 2009

we filled ribstone silos still common practice today feller a few towns over had a 100 foot ribstone biggest around but couldnt find a tractor to blow the silage without plugging so he built one a farmall f-12 he put a ford 406 in it we bought it at his farm sale we used it on a 40 footer at half throttle it would blow the silage clean over the top them was the days always wanted to collect the corn juice and cook it down but never have

showcrop · Sep 2, 2009

I enjoy watching the present day corn chopping of the farm where I hung out as a kid. They use two NH FX45 6 row choppers. they blow direct into 10 wheeler dumps. I believe that they have 12 of those. When a truck is nearly full the next one pulls up beside it, chopper spout lifts a little to blow into the empty one. Full one takes off and empty one pulls in next to chopper. If the ground is wet a big tractor with duals or MFWD circles close behind the trucks and if the truck starts to spin it gets a little nudge from the tractor. Hour after hour day after day week after week.

flying belgian · Sep 2, 2009

I don't know if I believe that or not. But it's a good story even if it ain't true.

Don-Wi · Sep 2, 2009

Probably molasis. We use that when we put up haylage. We sued to put preservative in with our corn, but it really doesn't prove much use and we haven't used it much the last few years.

We Currently run a Fox 3000 behind an Oliver 1855, and put the 1600 on the blower. Our Massey 285 hauls wagons. I ussualy run the chopper while Dad hauls wagons. IF we plan ahead and have everything lined up we can chop all 25-35 acres of corn in 2 days. A few years ago we did all of our corn, and our 4th crop hay, in 3 days. The hay wasn't much, but it did add up. Had 40 acres of hay and 35 of corn. We rented a 986 IH from across the road and put that on a bagger, and stuffed just about all of it in there.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Anonymous-0 · Sep 3, 2009

I remember corn silage time on my grandparents’ dairy farm. Great memories. They filled a 10x45 concrete silo. Early on, they had belt driven blower with a long drag chain. Don’t know the make. An Oliver 77 powered that. The chopper was a NH 717 with 1 row head. A Farmall 400 powered that. A Farmall H was used to haul a NH No. 6 forage wagon. Slow going, but it was a joy to watch.

As I got older, probably around 11 or 12yrs, I got to haul the forage wagons. By then the blower was replaced by a modern style IH and powered by a David Brown 990. The Farmall 400 was replaced by an AC 180. The NH 6 wagon was still used and a 3 beater Meyers wagon was added. I typically hauled wagons with the Farmall H, but if it was tied up I would actually use the Ford 8n. To this day I don’t know how I got the 8n to manage the Meyers wagon. Very carefully I guess.

Presently, I have my own small farm and some beef cattle. I fill a 10x40 silo. This is the first year I won’t have to borrow any equipment. A JD 4010 and 38 chopper with 1 row head will be in the field. A JD 4020 will run NH 8 and JD 125 wagons. I have a NH 28 blower at the silo. The JD 2010 diesel has enough power to run the blower, but it’ll really blow smoke if you push it too much. Takes about 13 wagon loads and a full day to fill the silo. Should start in another 2 weeks.

NEKS · Sep 3, 2009

This was my favorite time of year when was a kid. I guess cause was old enough to drive the tractor and wagons. In 1951 dad and may Uncle bought a Gehl chopper together. They both milked cows. At the time our only tractor was a WD and my Uncles was a Ferguson 35. The chopper had a Continental Red Seal, flat head, 4 cylinder engine on it. The words Read Seal stamped in the side of the gray hood to a nine year old made it look powerful. They made two wagons with wood drags and a length of cable attach to unload them. Packed the trench silo with the neighbors L Case. There for years they filled silos all over the country. A tractor and wagon stuck at the silo now and then was interesting to a young boy. By the time I was big enough to run the chopper had self unloading wagons and bigger tractors. The last trench silo I help fill was dads cousin. I was useing a JD 8630 with a dozer blade at the silo trying to keep a head of two 3 row cutters in the field.

dieseldoc · Sep 3, 2009

Come on out.I am going to start next week. I will put up 2000 tons for myself and about that much for the nieghbor.We can use all the help we can get.

Silo filling

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