This year silage harvest is a little different

Bruce from Can.

Well-known Member
I usually chop my own corn, but with my boys grown up and have jobs, only my oldest home on the farm with me now. For the two of us to do chores and chop this years 40 acres of corn, would take weeks. And on the cusp of 60 , I don’t feel like knocking myself out doing it.
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This big Claws harvester
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2 of these trucks
A 180 CaseIh tractor with a blade is leveling in the pits, and my son and I are packing with our Kubota loader tractors.
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The two pits are 70 feet long and one is 30 foot wide, other is 40, by 12 deep at the far end. We started yesterday at , 1:30pm ran till 7:00 , did nearly 32 acres, wIt’s 8 or so left to finish today

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There is also one tractor pulling a H+S forage box. Fendt tractors are now becoming very popular here taking a lot of market share away from CaseIh and JD in the over 200hp market
Guess after I get the silage covered, I can crank up my old Case 930 , and start in spreading manure.
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As much as I love chopping corn, the last few years that we milked cows, I hired a neighbor with a 6 row Claas chopper and 2 big dump trucks to chop my corn. What took us 2-3 weeks, he did in 2-4 days. I just kept the corn out of the way of the next truck coming.
 
We have gone the same way on our farm. Custom operator brings a 6 row harvester,3 wagons and the blower and I provide the wagon drivers. We cut 40 ac on Monday
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I know the feeling, on a much smaller scale though, I’ve been pretty much an Army of one this late summer and fall with my kids frying other fish.

I think we will be seeing a lot of Fendts in the coming years.
 
It is amazing what them big choppers can cut per hour. The one custom cutter in my area has a twelve row corn head and they chop into semi trucks. In wet conditions they have a hitch on the front and use CaseIH quad tracks to pull them thru the fields. Many of the older farmers in my area are getting custom cutters as they and their machinery are getting tired. I enjoy corn silage to much to hire it done but do consider hiring the haylage chopped. Tom
 
Most of the small to mid sized farms around here are all going with custom chopping. They save time and money in the long run. It's hard to find good hired hands nowdays.
 
You will have to sell a lot of bull calves and pies to pay for that. Perhaps just keep on exporting those geese also. Bill
 

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