Abandoned Silos - What was there?????

Bill VA · Jun 14, 2016

With the thread on the demise of the family farm, quite often we take a drive out in the countryside and we
will see an abandoned silo. Most of the time, whatever building was with it has crumbled; often times the
roof over the silo is gone too.

I think when I see these old silos - there must have been a family farm, maybe as recently as the late to
early 80's. I can only imagine what the place looked like in that day - surely stunning and beautiful.
Neighboring farms too.

Someone tell me - when I see a silo, one or two, on a small farm, is that a dead give away that at one time -
that farm once was a dairy?

Thanks,
Bill

4520BW · Jun 14, 2016

Around here we call the harvestore silos blue tombstone's!

hd6gtom · Jun 14, 2016

lotta dreams and hard work were contained in those silos.

gene bender · Jun 14, 2016

They are still in use and i know some farmers who like they said that thing made me some good money

D beatty · Jun 14, 2016

Not very many of them left in this area and a number of farmers that bought them went under after buying one and some bought 2 or 3 of them. They were a high dollar silo.

gtractorfan · Jun 14, 2016

Might have been for beef cattle. Neighbor has two Harvestores and uses them to store grain, don't know how full though.

old · Jun 14, 2016

In this area of Missouri you see a lot of those old concrete silos around and many have been there for decades and standing empty. I have always wants to get a few of them but figure it would be next to impossible to move one but if I could it would make some pretty neat ways to build a root cellar or storm shelter or other such place to hide and store things

Mark-Ia · Jun 14, 2016

They were used to store chopped corn,hay,ect(silage) to feed cattle, whether it was for dairy of beef cattle.

Married2Allis · Jun 14, 2016

My uncle had a deal with a local feed company where he would grow corn on his dairy farm, and take the harvest to the feed company. Feed company would chop it into what he called ensilage and they would fill up his concrete silo.

TomH in PA · Jun 14, 2016

I heard second had that the reason Harvestores put so many out of business was the way they were financed.

Instead of using the silo as collateral, the company convinced the farmer that he would make so much money it was worth using the land to back up the loan. You can guess how that turned out.

Tony in SD · Jun 14, 2016

When I was 24 years old a Harvestore salesman asked me when our farm was going to modernize and get a Harvestore Silo? I told him in front of God and Country "Two years before we go broke.". A County Agent said "That's about right. ". The salesman didn't think it was funny. He has long sinced moved on and we still own the farm.

Gambles · Jun 14, 2016

Speaking of the Harvestore silos, quite a few years ago I remember that there was a class-action lawsuit against them because they advertised that they were air tight. Even though they had a rubber bladder that worked similar to a set of human lungs, they were far from air tight. Anybody else remember the lawsuit?

coonie minnie · Jun 14, 2016

As said below... almost always cattle, dairy or beef. That said, I have an aunt and uncle that fed hogs for many years from a Harvestore filled with high moisture corn.

In my neck of the woods, we have about a dozen or so square silos made of fieldstone. Those are some neat structures.

Part Time Pete · Jun 14, 2016

Still a lot of silos in use here in central NY - mostly concrete stave. A lot of Harvestores went up in the late 70's, but most of them have been taken down. The rule of thumb back then was $1,000/ foot
When I was a kid there were 200 acre dairy farms, one after the other - probably 1 tenth the number now... hard to see - it was a great life, and a good living for a lot of farmers...
Pete

Ron Muhlenkamp · Jun 14, 2016

Once a Harvestore is up, it's a sunk cost. Why have they been abandoned?

farmerwithmutt · Jun 14, 2016

The Amish move them basically if there not jet creted they can be taken apart. What they do is take each stave loose and drop them in a sandpile and somebody fishes it out Amish neighbor his brother died in a fall that way and his kid had his skull split open that way but that wasn't child abuse.

oldtanker · Jun 14, 2016

Lot of silos still up here, just not many being used. Most have gone over to bagging or a bunker for ease and speed of feeding. I only know of 2 farms still here with livestock using upright silos. I'm sure there are a few more but not many.

Rick

WGM · Jun 14, 2016

How would that be practical?

notjustair · Jun 14, 2016

I've got a silo here - it's only used to hoist a star at Christmas time. We used a trench silo to feed sedan silage to our Herefords. We didn't have any dairy cattle. It was good feed and a lot of bang for the buck. We were in western Kansas and didn't have good "hay" like brome and such. We fed sedan bales with our silage and did well.

I feed round brome bales and some alfalfa squares every day in the winter along with protien tubs. I'm not sure that's all cheaper than making silage. That, and I love the smell of silage. It's like some folks liking the smell of gas, I guess.

oldtanker · Jun 14, 2016

Another thing that's killing silos here is harvesting equipment. Back when choppers were 1/2/3 row units a couple of guys could put it in a silo with one chopping and the other running wagons and unloading. For further fields they had 3 guys with one unloading and one just running wagons. Today around here we are seeing more guys with self propelled units that takes trucks to keep up with. Doing 6 or more rows at once or 20 feet of hay in a windrow. Those are the small ones. Guy would have to have a bunch of wagons and tractors to keep up with the chopper. No way they could keep up trying to blow that into a silo. The guys running that type of equipment are all using bunkers here. Don't think a bagger could keep up either unless it was one heck of a big bagger.

Rick

Bill VA · Jun 14, 2016

I've seen the blue silos around - but mostly what I see is old concrete (maybe they are blocks? ) solos. Not crazy tall, but higher than the apex of a typical barn with a loft.

oldtanker · Jun 14, 2016

(quoted from post at 20:36:11 06/14/16) I've seen the blue silos around - but mostly what I see is old concrete (maybe they are blocks? ) solos. Not crazy tall, but higher than the apex of a typical barn with a loft.

Big concrete ones here were/are 80FT.

Rick

JMS/.MN · Jun 14, 2016

Your rule of thumb is about double what they really cost...I put up a 50 foot grain unit and a 70 foot haylage unit in the late 70s...raised the haylage unit to 90 feet some years later. The grain unit was just a bit more than my drying bin in terms of per bushel cost. And, the grain unit didn"t require LP gas! Fed dairy cows, steers, and hogs with it. No drying cost.

Big advantage with the haylage unit is always fermented feed...not pulling a surface drive unloader up at each cutting...yeah, great when a cutting gets stretched out....

Now, with today"s technology...baggers, etc., yes, good alternative, but they weren"t around 40 years ago.

coshoo · Jun 15, 2016

They were mostly on dairies around here. There was a big influx of dairying after WWII (my dad included), and most of the concrete stave silos went up in the '50's. Turned out to be too labor intensive (both filling, and pitching it out), and too little capacity when the farms increased in size, so they were pretty much done by the mid-60's. Folks went to bunkers silos, then bags.

Leroy · Jun 15, 2016

A lot of the abonded silos are the results of the farmer getting older and either having to quit farming or him diying and the farm being taken over by a neighbor and had no use for the buildings or silos on the farm he just bought so abandon. More from old age of the farmer than any other reason they are standing unused.

Abandoned Silos - What was there?????

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