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100lb feed bags

J

JRSutton

Well-known Member
My kids were moaning and groaning the other day when I had them unload bags of grain from my pickup.

I did the usual father thing: "you know when I was your age, we didn't even have these little 50 pound bags"

Everything we had was in 100 pound bags.

That got me to wondering - when did that change? I somehow never really noticed it.

Is this a local thing, or is the 50 pound bag now a universal concept?

Do they still sell it in 100lb bags where you are?

Obviously talking about store bought, mass produced grain.

My first job was unloading grain deliveries and delivering it all around town in an old econoline.

What a miserable experience that was. Tractor trailer would pull in full - and we had to unload by hand, not even a two wheel hand cart.

Worst was in the winter when the sweet feed was frozen solid.

All in those #$#$ plastic burlap bags.

(and uphill both ways - in 4 feet of snow...)

Just curious - I haven't seen a 100lb bag in decades.
 
All I remember is 50 pound bags. I probably handled the first one in about 1960. Not saying we didn't have 100 pounders but 50 is all I remember. Jim
 
I remember a few 100# bags of raw product in the 50's, but most commercially produced feeds were in 50# bags. Most fertilizers I remember handling were in 80# bags then.
 
Last 100 pounders were bags of beans. Had a floor load of 520 bags on a flat bed. Unloaded in Dallas Texas and they said the fork couldn't go on my truck because I wasn't union. The year was 1986 and unloading that load to the dock about did me in in 90* heat. Haven't seen 100 pounders since, thank God!
 
Had a small feed store in a local town that was open into the mid 80's. They had 100lb bags of feed, and the fellow that ran it was in his mid 70's. I saw him many times with a bag on each shoulder carrying it out to pickup trucks on the end of the loading dock. That left an impression in my young mind. He wasn't a real big man, but I knew he was strong!
 
Reminds me, when i was young filling the corn planter with 50# fertilizer bags, it was waist high off the pickup or wagon and waist high putting them on the planter boxes. Didn't seem like a big deal carrying 3 bags at a time. (trying to make fast "pit stops")
 
All 50 pounders around here.

I used to handle some "bushel" bags of corn and beans a long time ago. I think a bushel of corn weighs 60 pounds and a bushel of beans weighs 56 pounds (or maybe I have that backwards, it's been a long time).

Tom in TN
 
The feed stores around here only used 100 LBS burlap bag when they ground ear corn for customers. The ready made feed was usually 50 lbs paper bags. I worked my way through high school bagging 50 lbs bags of feed.

The only commercial stuff that we handled that was heavier than 50 lbs was concrete which was 80-90, depending on the company or some foreign made 50 Kilogram bags of fertilizer, usually urea.
 
When I first moved to central New York in 1979 - all the feed came in 100 lb. burlap bags. Around 1984, they changed over to 50 lb. bags that were some sort of plastic mesh. I miss having all those old empty burlap bags around. They were great for carrying angry chickens.
 
In 1966 my first outside winter job was working for Land O Lakes loading box cars of fertilizer.They would hold 50 tons and weighed 80#s and we stacked them 12 high if my memory is correct.Corn & Soybeans were in 50# bags now it is mostly containers and now they are going to true bulk where you just take your tender to dealer.Now people go to the fitness center as they are soft.A lot kids don't like to work or bale hay anymore and then wonder why they don't have any money
 
Had kids help me with haying moaning and groaning about how heavy the bales were put one on the scale 45 lbs never heard a complaint after that.
remember the old gunny sacks ground feed cows with cob wernt bad but shelled corn ground you got good at takeing the bran sacks out and putting the small ones in just remembering the smell of fresh ground feed and the bun candy bar howard always had for kids was that a long time ago
 
Does anyone remember scooping bulk fertilizer in to the ezee-flow spreader to spread it on hay ground or stubble in the fall. I for lack of sense used a grain scoop.
 
Just about everything was 50# except the bean meal we picked up at Quincy Soybean, that was 100# burlap.
 
In Ontario we went from 100 pounders to 88 pounders back in the late 70's or early 80's because 88 pounds was 40 kilograms, and we had been forced to become metric by our all knowing government of the day. Not too long after that they switched to 25 KGs which is 55 pounds. I have to admit that I like the little ones better.
 
We can thank OSHA for that. Here in the North-East it seems to my that I remember sometime in the mid 1980's one of their experts said " A person should only lift 50# ".
The farmers were exempt from OSHA but not the workers in the mills.
 
I remember I got out of the Army in Dec. 1953. I went looking for A job. I took the first job I found. At wholesale grocery and feed. All feed was 100 lb bags. It changed in late 1950 and early 1060 s around here. We was glad to see the 50lb bags.

Hammer Man
 
I was a teen in the 50's and remember them well. All I could do to get them from the pickup into the barn.
All burlap except fertilizer which was in paper bags and also 100#. All fertilizer in this area was bagged. No such thing as bulk.
 
i grew up on the other side of the pond, and as a kid (in the 80s) fertilizer came in 112 lb bags (uk hundredweight)they were plastic bags and slippery, hard to grip, used to get beet pulp in 112 lb bags too, they were paper and bigger than i was!

I remember my dad talking about harvest when he was a kid (he was born in 26), threshing machine, and wheat in burlap bags, that held 3 bushels, they used the same bags for all grains, wheat would have been 180 lbs, while oats were only 90 something... We used to have a "sack lifter" looked like a two wheel hand trolley, but had a lift mechanism built in to lift the bags about 4 ft in the air.

Once i was in my late teens, i worked for a big potato farmer, 56 lb bags of potatoes, hand stacked 40 to a pallet. Most trucks were loaded with a fork truck, but sometimes were had to hand bomb them into a reefer. I was a lot fitter back then!
 
Yep the 100#ers are dead and gone , I think it was earlier last year when they stopped using them or maybe the year before . Someone at the feed mill told me that it was due to insurance as tomany JOB related injurys from lifting 100#ers .We use get our soya meal in them . Now we get fifty pounders in paper bags that slid all over the bed . so now twice as much trash to dispose of and twice the work and twice as long dumping them in the grinder . More fuel being used . The only thing i can say about it is yes i can handle the bags easier since i have lost a lot of my strength from when i got sick a couple years ago . There is nomore grabbing a head for a 400 series engine off the bench and setting on the block in a tractor anymore by myself as i can't even get a gasser head up over the guide studs by myself any more . And oh them 100 lber ft. weights , ah nomore one handed off the ground and on the weight rack either , can't even do the 75 pounder that way. sucks to get old a feeble .
 
My first off farm job was st the local feed mill in 1981. Threw a lot of 100# sacks then. My local mill still puts feed in 100# sacks if you have them custom grind your own mix.
 
Dad bought is fertilizer in 80 pound bags when I was a kid. We stacked it between the barn doors in a banked barn from front to back in the winter. I was tickled when I could help and carry one bag at a time. The one delivery person would carry two bags at a time. I was again tickled when I was able to also carry two 80 pound bags of fertilizer as I became older and stronger.
I am glad now that the feed I buy is in 50 pound bags and work at staying strong enough to carry one. Two would be out of the question. :)^D
 
The mill where I do business has been 50# for quite a while. Probably as stated,since the 80's-90's. And it's a good thing, because now it's the same people throwing around the 50's who threw around 100's back in the day. Me included! The younger people there are driving truck, or are sitting in the office.
 
I don't know of a single consumer that is "man" enough to choose a 100 lb. bag of product over a 50 lb. bag if they are side by side on a shelf even if the price was a buck cheaper. I've wised up over the years. 40 lb. bags are the max I care to handle. Call it old age and wisdom.
 
Remember dad carrying 100 pounders to the barn in the '50's. By the 70's, when I had cattle, they were all 80's. I think they went to 50's when all the women started getting horses. Also, when prices went so high that the bigger bags would have caused sticker shock.
 
Barber & Bennett out of the port of Albany used to deliver feed to our farm in 100lb burlap bags, but switched over sometime into the 70's, but it was before '78. I do remember the burlap bags well, they had lots of other uses.
 
If you go to Orscheln and get feed they are 40 pound bags. The Coop is 50. I am sure it is because they got tired of buying back surgeries for people.

When they were 100 pound burlap they probably did it to save sacking. Now no one cares about packaging. The only true paper feed bags I get anymore are the concentrate for grinding feed. They other stuff is all plasticky paper stuff. Have you gone to Walmart lately? They put ONE thing in each bag. USE LOTS - OIL IS UNLIMITED! I tell them to really fill them up.
 
I had an old timer tell me about back in the days when men were real men and he ran the threshing rig. When they had a rainly day, the crew would gather in the alleyway of the barn and toss 100lb. bags of grain - with their teeth!
 
Feed was always bulk here. Commercial feed would come in bulk or 50 lb bags. I am 66 years old.
 
One year in the 70's dad got ten ton of Pete's cattle cubes. It was loaded in the bottom deck of a cattle trailer and 100lb bags. I will never forget them bags. Unloaded out the side door then to the storage shed and stacked.
 
Local high school kid worked at the feed mill when they used 100# bags. Where guys would handle them one at a time, he would put one on each shoulder & one in each hand & walk out of the store. He went on to be a professional wresler.
 
In the early 1970's we used some sow bran that only came in 100 lb bags. Those bags were bulky and very clumsy to handle. Everything else was 50 lb or bulk. Mostly Felco brand.
 
Shoot many places do not have 50lbs bags of stuff it is now 40lbs. Like if you buy sugar years ago it was a 5lbs bag now most places it is a 4lbs bag.
 
Back in the 50s all our dairy ration came in 100 lb. burlap bags. That's just the way it was, so we never gave much thought to how heavy they were to handle. The empty bags were useful for lots of things; many a baby calf left our place stuffed into a burlap sack, tied up around its neck. We gave the calves away, sometimes sold them for a dollar or two a head. Lot of folks wanted one to raise for the freezer, so often times they hauled the calf away in the trunk of their car. Don't recall any ever offering us a package of steaks.

Some of the feeds, like chicken scratch, came in colorful print bags. My aunt sewed my shirts, so I would go to the feed store and pick out my next shirt. I specifically remember one green and purple and red paisley; man, I thought I was so cool in that shirt.
 
I was surprised to see that there was bags heavier than 100 pounds. A guy I worked with years ago bought a sealed barrel full of printed bags from a old timers farm estate auction.
Mainly fertilizer bags. Had net weights on them as high as 150 pounds then progressed down to 80.
 
Haha, yeah, I remember those. I remember helping my neighbor unload sacks, milk replacer or something years ago. It was in 50 # sacks. We got in a race to see who would carry the most. Before we got done we were each carrying FOUR bags. Dumb Dumb Dumb.
 
I remember 200 pound burlap fertilizer sacks when I was a little squirt. I would have to scratch it out into a bucket to fill the planter hopper. TDF
 
Jde. My Mother had a frame just the size of burlap Bags, and a hand held ratchet-pump knitter(not the correct term) .she use to cut strips from material about 1/4 " wide, sew em together insert em in the needle eye and make rugs . drew pictures with crayons to start the process on the burlap. Mother passed away 1995. Great entrance mats/carpets.
LOU
 
I loved your post Jerry, took me back many years when we used the old burlap bags from cottonseed meal for animal bedding, grease absorbers, crack stoppers, tool boxes, and even to san {sp} minnows out of the creek for fishing. I wore shirts made from flour sacks most of my young life..
 
Thats right. When I was like 18 in 1968 in the summer time I would get in pretty good shape. By the end of the summer I could put a 100% bag on each shoulder and walk the length of the barn. Sure can't do that anymore!
 
Yes, I remember the 100# bags of feed and unloading thousands of them in years past. Then they went to 80# bags, which was great for us youngsters. Then they went to 50# bags which made life better yet. Now it seems they're going to 40# bags. Some say it's because a lot of the feeds, like horse feed, is sold to women and they can't handle anything larger. Through all of these changes in weight, the volume has decrease and the price has increased. Go figure..
Dick
 
When I was putting up a lot of hay in the late '70's and early '80's, I never had trouble getting a haying crew. 2 reasons- first, the football coach was a part-time farmer, and he required his players to punch a time clock in the weight room for so many hours a week, but they could substitute hour for hour their pay slips from bucking hay bales. Second reason was that our nanny was a cute cheerleader- she liked the muscular types, and EVERYBODY liked her- so when she came in the morning, I'd tell her how many guys and what time, and when I got home from work, there they'd be, flirting with her and ready to work. Don't remember ever having a slacker- they HATED lifting weights for free, when there was an alternative.
 
We still had 50 kg (100 lb) feed bags until 10 - 15 years ago. Now it is all 25 kg (50 lb) as that is what is legal for people to handle by hand here. It is still possible to get grain seed in 50 kg bags though but the big 500 kg bags are more common.
I remember my father talking about how he and the other guys competed about carrying the 100 kg (200 lb) bags in those days when he was young. No wonder he suffered a lot from a bad back later.
 
I scooped plenty of bulk fertilizer into a 494, 7000 and 400IH planter, the 4 row was not bad at all, pull up to the back end of a flare box and scoop away then turn the planter and fill the other hopper, the 8 row wasn't so easy. I remember Moormans feed in paper sacks with the wire rings on the corners, don't remember what they weighed because I was pretty young then.
 
The only reason I can think of for going from 100 lb bags to 50lb bags is for some reason between the age of 16 and 61 is that those 100lb bags doubled in weight.
 
I still buy chicken and horse feed in 100 pound bags. Thats how the local feed mills sell. Its impressive to see my neighbor's sons carry them. That 13 year old is strong. Bagged feed at the Tractor supply is 50's, but cost almost as much as 100's at the Amish mill.
 
In the early 60's all our dairy feed came in hundred lb bags. I was a teenager then and we got 20 tons of citrus pulp at one time. Most came in a closed van trailer. I remember how dusty it was and also the citrus pulp weighed the same as other feed but the bags were a lot bigger. It was harder to handle for us kids. But fun fun fun. Tommy
 
We were getting feed from blue seal in 1990 in hundred pound bags, some time later that year they started bringing 50# bags, the driver told us it was because of OSHA, to many people were hurting there backs with 100# bags. At least that's what I remember.
 
Hey JR.

Here in upstate NY the local feed mill sells pretty much everything in hundredweight bags.

They charge you a couple bucks extra for 50lb.

Brad
 

Yeah, everything is offered in 100 lbs bags here at my feed mill. You can get 50's if you ask. Mostly that's for ladies and the elderly.
 
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