In our area of Vermont, Amish families setting up new farms in neighboring NY will purchase old silos here, take them down (often a service to the owner) and rebuild them. They strongly prefer the solid blocks, and nothing bigger than 14 feet- the distance one guy told me he can throw across the silo with a fork while feeding out.
I really learned a lot on your video about opening a silo. I didn't know there was so many pros and cons with storing silage in a silo. My late Grandfather William Erickson Jr. had to Stave Silos with the Concrete Blocks that held over 700 tons of corn silage. My late Uncle Bill Erickson unless his wife Shirley and Dale had two silos on their farm. They haven't filled silos for years. They store their silage in White Silo bags. For years they chopped their corn silage with a Rotary forage harvester with a corn head and a head for chopping hay. They had two H and S Silage Wagons.
There were two 60 foot silos on the dairy I worked on for years in my youth. My wife found your channel. Love watching. Often explain things to her only to be followed by you seconds later. I’m a chemical engineer but vividly remember the lowest paying most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Thanks for producing these videos. We often watch these in the evening.
I find your discussion about your barn most interesting. My great grandfather, Samual King, his older brother Harrison Grant King was a barn builder. Harrison build his first barn at age 21 and was a good record keeper, noting how much each barn he built cost to build. That would have been the early 1890’s and the cost to build a barn was around $800.00. Harrison during his barn career he built around 50 barn, 3 of which are still standing and in good condition and had been well keep in repair. My great grandfather’s wages that brother Harrison paid at the time was $0.50 per day. I’m 73 years old , and really love watching you guy’s run your dairy farm. Take my back as a youngster on our dairy farm here in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. I still have dairy farm friends I visit a couple times a year, especially during harvest time. Keep up the good work!
I loaded and unload silos just like that listening to your father reminds of my great grandma I hope you carry on the farm the way your dad does when he's gone small dairy's are fading it's a good life and something to be proud of I wish I could visid you and talk to your dad love the video really takes me back👍👍
When we were growing up, anything that required physical labor such as cleaning the gutters or pitching silage was referred to as the ARMSTRONG method. Bringing back memories!
I've got lots of stories about silos like you have but I'll limit this comment to 2. Besides the two 12' diameter wood stave silos that were built inside the big gambrel roofed barn in 1916, My dad built a 14'x50' cement stave silo next to the barn on the outside. The alternating white cement staves like yours at the top was a trademark of Madison silos. We usually filled it with corn silage the first week of school which was the first week of September back then. My Uncle who later replastered the silo to seal it for high moisture ground corn years later said my dad put the silage in too green and that's why the cement staves had deteriorated. I remember coming home from school and there was lots of dark brown juice seeping out of the silo and accumulating on a low spot of the cow yard. A cow we had, liked to drink the juice. When I interrupted her drinking she acted very strangely, shaking her head at me and aggressively pawing the pavement as though she was a bull about to charge. I think the brown juice had turned to moonshine and the cow was drunk. Not long before Christmas is when we opened up that silo like we saw you doing. One cold December the silage was already partially froze at the top. You had to break it up with a pick axe first. Clarence Bartnick who was a great hired man with a strong back, weak mind and prone to panic attacks, began opening up the silo by himself as my dad and me were both in school. (He was a schoolteacher farmer) When I got off the school bus. I heard a barely discernable cry for help coming from the silo. I told my dad about it and we went out to investigate. Clarence had thrown some large frozen chunks which had lodged crossways near the bottom of the chute. Unaware of this he kept on throwing the spoiled silage down the chute and when he finished the job he found himself trapped in the silo. It took us about 20 minutes to dig him out from the bottom and when he hit the ground he was having a panic attack. My dad sent him home and did the chores by himself that night.
I love the stories. It's the way history has been passed down through generations. The safest unloader is a silage fork. I'm sure not many people know the difference between the type of forks anymore. Everything is a "pitch" fork. Thank you for sharing the stories. It brings back great memories. Stay safe and God bless.
Yes, I used to have to clean out a cotton seed house using what is called a seed fork. The cotton seed house was house that seed was blown into until it could be loaded for shipping to the oil mills where the oil and meal are extracted for the food industry and livestock feed. High protein feed
Enjoyed your video. Remember we had a 14 by 40 that my dad had. My brother and I took turns forking it out. At lunch one day dad said he bought us a new silo unloaders. We jumped up from the dinner table and ran out to the truck. There was a brand new fork. My dad passed in 72 we now have 3 silos. Needles to say they have unloaders. Everything is expensive but what are you going to do when you are 77 and 79. Good luck to 😊😊😊😊😊😊
I was 10 years old when i started throwing silage down from our 12 × 35 silo we sold the cows when I turned 20 still miss the days when life was simple.
We have a 20x70 silo here on our dairy in central mn and they are still the most common feed storage around here for most guys milking less than 100 cows Kinda interesting how things change from place to place. The silo companies around here still build new silos generally 1-4 per yr depending on things. We’re actually hoping to build a new 14x70 in a couple yrs for high moisture corn. New silos run in price from around $20,000 for a small one like yours to well over $100,000. Biggest ones over here is a pair of 30x100 they’re huge silos on a 120 cow robotic milking setup the one is around 20yrs old the other about 10yrs old I say now. Love the videos 👍
I enjoyed your video very much. Very much like our own farm, but we are a older father son team. I am 61, and my son 35. We have 100 tie stalls and keep silage in trench silos with concrete floors, and also do balage. The information you are sharing is very accurate , and good information for non farmers. I grew up forking silage out of a 12x50 silo, and knew I didn’t want to climb a silo everyday, lol. Great video, great information. You are good embasadors for the dairy industry.
Nice video, reminds me of my grandfather's silo. He told stories of climbing the silo to feed cows in the winter and half way up he would meet a raccoon coming down. No where to go, you had to lean back against the chute and let the raccoon go by.
Thanks for your videos. I grew up on a dairy farm in Canton, New York way up north near the Canadian border. My Dad and Mom had 4 Boys and 4 girls and I was the oldest and I thought I was going to take over the farm. But, as I got older I decided to join the USNAVY and spent ten years in the service. My youngest brother, his wife and their daughter still live on the farm. My grand parents started the farm in 1917. Take care and enjoy your life, Paul Richardson
Your dad is such a good storyteller, those silo unloaders are a real pain and dangerous, I left a wrench on top of one once after we just replace the knives and ruined 5 or 6 of them, also have heard of lots of accidents we had a 20 year old kid about 4 years ago just down the road from us get caught in one very sad. We went to bunkers about 15 years ago and have never looked back.
Hey there our silo unloaded was put in 1984 and it’s still running. There. Must be lots of silo unloaded not being us in you Area that you could throw into your silo preferably a butler James way. It muse cost a lot to pack you silo. M s u said you need to pack for 3 minutes a ton. At 1000 ton that’s 50 hours. That a lot of 5 dollar fuel plus plastic to cover silage. Just a thought maybe a big upright would be better than a pile
Gee,what FUN!! Any farmer that has had a silo has more then one story of a close call from silo gas or an unloader breakdown. I have climbed hundreds feet in a dirty dark silo chute. Half the time there is a bird 🐦 of some kind waiting to fly up your nose 👃. Must be fun up on nice hot silage on a 90 degree 😜 day. Yes I know what's that's like!! It's hard work. Great video again. Thanks 😊.
I grew up on a small dairy farm as well. now its turned into to a small beef farm but anyways we did the same with our silo. with high moisture corn. just shoveled it out!!
Remember shoveling corn silage at my uncles dairy farm.we had about 60 milking cows. Boy did that stuff smell. At 14 years old thought nothing about climbing up those stairs.
Looks sooooo familiar. Up until 1987 we had 2 wooden silos on the farm and I was the unloader. I experienced everything you talked about and did regarding the silo. Thanks for putting this video up. It brought back a lot of memories for me. I no longer have cattle and I tore those silos down in 1991, as the wood was getting bad.
History and memories are a great part of the farm it not only shows things that have changed but it shows how you have take pride in what you have and and kept things working and usable and taken care of. Thank you for another great video and looking forward to the next
Hey fellas kip siegler farming has 6 silos that they use with 3 ag bags they r in Michigan next door to u lol next door to me as well upstate new York great video as always GOD BLESS YOU AND FAMILY 🙏🏻👍🙂
So glad I found this channel. Farming the way you do is almost nonexistent. It takes me back when I was younger on my grandparents farm, and working on a few farms in high school.
When I was a freshman in High School myy dad had tried to break the condition of a frozen silo unloader and loosen the machine. In the process he pulled on the V-belts themselves as the motors pulley spun in place. In an instant the machine let loose. It was too late. Before my dad could let go of the V-belts his hand went around with the pulley and his thumb had been severed at the joint. It had cut clear through his winter buckskin mittens and clear through the bone. We had 5 silos with unloaders and I always fave them a lot of respect.
Hello love watching your videos Iam 65 now I farmed in Ontario Canada with my dad ,we had beef cattle, I used to have to fork out the silo ,it was a 16 by 50 ,hard work in the winter. I can't get over the hills on your farm..I don't work on the family farm anymore, my dad passed away two years ago he was 95 ,loved farming. I still work on a large beef farm 4 hours away from the family farm ,it is a finishing feedlot, 2000 hd.Iam going to retire, end of April, would love to come and see your farm ,brings back a lot of memories. Thanks David Bryett
This video sure brought back memories of how we did it like you still do!!! The wheelbarrow was our way of moving lots of material around our barn. We quit milking in 2009 but could easily go back to it. It's like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it!!! I had a friend who was involved in a silo gas incident. He turned out ok but some have lung damage. Running the blower for 10 to 15 minutes is helpful if you need to go in.
I was lucky (or unlucky depending how you look at it) to have worked on a farm that filled silos. Huge silos too. Worst part for me was climbing the silo when the juices were running. It would be raining in the tunnel up the side of the silo. Pitched off many tons of silage, fixed the unloader a bunch. Another horror we had to deal with was the manual crank to pick the unloader all the way up. Seemed like you had to crank that handle over a billion times to get the unloader off the ground maybe 6ft! Lol memories. You guys do awesome with the explanations of everything.
Still putting new ones up here in PA, trenches and bags take up too much valueable land...............Setup as with a bottom unload "Big Jim" they are very efficient way to store and move feed. With a good blower/big tractor/blow deck to unload trucks you can really pound the feed out. For a small operation a tower silo is my choice, with good upkeep the unloader just works, and I would much rather throw a switch when its zero out and chip off some silage on the west wall every few days than screw with diesel equipment in that weather. Also, I can't believe you don't have a rope and pulley in the chute to haul up stuff once your up top instead of carrying it.
I think your dad is enjoying the TH-cam thing. I'm glad he is and appreciate him making the effort to do some filming. We had a 12X45 concrete stave silo on our farm and rats would often tunnel in the silage pile at the bottom of the tube to stay warm. I had one jump down on my head about 5 or 6 doors up when I was climbing up one evening. Needless to say, that freaked me out a bit.
Nice video. Always interesting seeing your stories. We have two 18x50 silos that have Vandale unloaders. Used year round. Yeah, they took some labor and repairs, but not any more than other machinery used year round. And I felt like I could turn the silo's on, then go do something else. It was a good labor savings. One was haylage and one was corn silage. Yeah, haylage takes more management to chop and blow into the silo. It can get sticky quick. Corn silage was always more fun and smelled better. Get the silo full, then level it out before lowering the unloader. In the winter it would freeze to the walls and when you finally got a week of warm weather, I'd have to get in and knock the 8" of frozen stuff off the walls. Not to mention climbing every couple weeks to lower the unloader another door. But I'd rather that then unload by hand! You guys work too hard! Watch out for mold spores. Good memories!
Keep parts on hand, do as much maintenance as possible when the silo unloader is on the bottom. Just like your feeding equipment or anything else a guy uses maintenance is the key to trouble free silo unloaders. We have a few and also make a silage bag. I'd take them silo over that silage bag any day just my opinion
I am a retired mechanical maintenance supervisor, and let me tell you, …..after 45 years of working with people in maintenance……either you got….or you don’t! You and your father …got it! Congratulations. This kind of knowledge doesn’t come with practice, it is innate, it’s in your DNA.
So what size is that silo? No I'm kidding 😂 Awesome video guys. That's a good idea sticking the pitchfork up on the door instead of leaving it in the silage. The date in the cement is really cool
I love watching your videos. Your latest video on opening an old stave silo took me back to my childhood growing up on a Jersey dairy farm in the 50s and 60s. We had a 10x40 Portland castle t
top silo with no roof or unloaded. When we filled with corn silage, we put a picket fence extension on top to add five more feet to allow for settling. We also stacked three rows of picket fence lined with sisal craft paper for extra storage space.
Used to fill four silos and then cap them with plastic too. I would tuck the plastic tarp around the outside the first day and then go up the silo a couple more times during the following week as the silage settled and tuck it down again. That made a big difference on how much spoilage was around the edges of the tarp. Had Hanson and Badger silo unloaders. They were easy to work on, a bearing here and there. Would do any major repairs when the silo was empty and the unloader was at the bottom. Never had issues with silo gas as was always careful in that respect. I actually prefer silos over bunker or piles. No mud and snow to deal with and less waste.
When I was a kid we had had a 14x40 brown tile silo no unloader (well me) and even with corn in the winter there was plenty of wear and tear on my body. Eventually it was replaced with a 16x60 Madison silo. We had a ring drive Starline unloader ring drive style and that spoiled me. We could crank it up to pitch silage by hand if we need too. That wasn't so bad. After about 10 years Dad built another 16x60 Rochester silo and word of mouth was that Badger unloaders we're the way to go. So Dad bought 2, one for each silo they have both been running strong for the better part of 40 years but we always plan on big maintenance when the silo gets empty. We always change out motors when it's at the bottom. Keep spare motors on hand for that get them rebuilt. You certainly prefer to change motors at the bottom. (Not that that ALWAYS happened. Now days if I were to build I guess I would go bunker but I would have to consider the cost of building the infrastructure for one.
Thanks. a bunch. Tons of information for my interests. I mostly custom farm Vineyards. So this was super interesting. You should be proud of your dad with all the loaded History. Truly grateful. Buck S.
awesome video I have a 12x40 going up next spring reclaimed silo cost will be about 5 grand but dont have alot of room for a bunk. you can stack alot of feed on a small area straight up in a silo and like you said less waste alot of effort goes into crops and hate to lose any to bad storage keep the videos coming hope all is well
My family always used trench silos. I can remember as a child watching them being dug into the hillside. Your correct if you don’t pour concrete floors in them they become messes. Grandpa had a small trench with out a concrete floor, he didn’t have many cows because at the time he did grade C milk. So he just backed in and loaded tubs of silage, even that silo got in a mess. My uncles garden spot was just a short distance from the silos. So the waste was spread out and worked in there, probably the only black soil in the county. Remember we live down south a lot of red clay
We discoverd something awsome for tower silo. To get much more less mould on top when u open. But i im not sure if u use a type of acid in it when u chop it. Normaly we only have gras tho. But we put extra acid on top before we cover it. And we have a big water sausage arround the edge to make a heavy pressure. U fill it with s normal garden hose and empty it with a garden hose before opening🤩 but amazing video as allways🤩
Nice vide. Takes me back to my youth. Now you'll get me posting about my youth again. My Dad fed very heavily corn silage and used a product called Blenda Life as a supplement. Also, a small amount of hay, no grain or dry corn. Dairy barn had two 14 X 40s and a 20X 60. Smaller ones were hand emptied. Hard to imagine spending the money to put an unloader in a 12-foot silo. I could throw a fork full down the chute from the far side of one of the 14 footers. There was an unloader in the large one. On the beef feeder farm there was a 30 X 50 with an unloader on a tripod. Usually about 200 acres of corn but not all became silage. The two large silos were stave silos from Osseo. Yours looks like it was a Madison. The Osseo's had an inner layer that was troweled on. Not sure what it was, but it seemed like a concrete product. I started going up to throw down silage at somewhere between 8 and 10.
Is silo gas only when silage is still fermenting?? I've heard some farmers running a blower before entering the silo. My uncle sold Patz unloaders and always tied his pant legs down by his ankles due to rats. The short time I worked for a neighbor who had 4 silos. 2 small 14' silos for high moisture corn, a 16' silo for corn silage and a 20' for haylage. He would bag corn silage and when 16' was empty would refill with corn silage from the bag. 1 of the 14' silos would be dual purpose where he would put some haylage then some corn silage to help keep feeding consistency. Amish in our area our still putting up silos.
There is an outfit down by me in sw Wisconsin that builds new silos along with repair and reworking existing ones. I believe that last I heard a new 20’x80’ or close size was in the neighborhood of $120k+
I appreciate you and your dad explaining in detail what you do and why you do it. On Twitter there is always a debate between silo or no silo. Nothing but monuments around here anymore because livestock has all but disappeared in this area. A lot of harvestores were built here in the 60’s and 70’s and have sat empty since the 80’s
Hey guys, thanks for the video, very interesting, I grew up on a small dairy farm too but I’m in Australia 🇦🇺 very very different here, I love your videos, cheers. 😁
Thank you so much for this video! My grandparents in Western Michigan had an old barn built in the early 1900s with a silo similar to yours. They never used the silo so it was really nice to see how you all go about using it in an old one like yours. Also, hearing the chickens clucking and crowing in the background was like music to my ears. I live in Los Angeles now and that is a sound that I never hear. It was a great treat watching this video and I look forward to seeing more from your bad ass farm!
I was always the guy to do the climbing! Had 2 16x60! We threw it out by hand, twice around as deep as you could get the fork, twice a day! Had a rat in the silo and I was just going to just stab it with the fork, It got running around, and then it ran up my leg! I'm out of here! Went and got the 20 gauge! Harvestore- A.O.Smith- after you buy then, they turn into I.O.Smith! We use to just run the blower when filling the silo and working in them!
great talk about silo i use a silo every year i have a unloader to but the longest mine sites is a few weeks becuse i use it all year it only last one year to empty i think that helps the unloader to work every day the ones that sit a lot i find have problems a lot just want to say not all of them are bad or have lots off problems
There were 4 12x40 silos on the family farms when I was a kid. I pitched everyday year round. Pick axe in the winter, even haylage in one. We would refill some with oatlage or barley silage sometimes and then feed that out before refilling in the fall with corn again
You guys have some great looking animals and the farm looks good it's neat to see them older dairy farms like you guys are on still producing healthy animals and milk I'm sure I have drank some of your guys milk since I live out here in Colorado
I'm just 66 years old, growing up in Michigan we used a 11'× 30', with an 11' dia. There was no unloader made for it, we had a silo taken down & added 20' to the 30footer, we filled it with high moisture ground ear corn for years, I unloaded it every year with a galvanized scoop shovel
Great video! I still fill and empty by hand a 12x40 poured concrete silo every year with corn silage. The kind of silo you still see standing alone in a field or woods by itself where the buildings are long gone. For a future video idea, does your family have a succession plan for the future? Are one of you brothers planning on taking over for your parents? It would be interesting to hear your family's thoughts on this since this is a hard thing for families to do nowadays with costs associated with it. Love the videos and look forward to the next!
Pretty good vid again guys . Thanks for sharing. Alot of producers have built modern facilities. Your farm just seems to belong & benefit all of us better with the care that you put into every aspect . And yep hats are nice 👍
Do you have any guys in your area who use silage bags? It’s fairly popular here in Ontario for smaller operations to add some extra capacity. Check out end of this video if interested: th-cam.com/video/yrhZasil2Yw/w-d-xo.html
We had a 14x40 silo that stood empty for years, until about 1992 when my dad decided to fill it. He could not find an unloader to fit it, or at least one he was willing to pay for. So we all had to throw down silage by hand from that silo. And yeah, in the dead of winter its rock hard, and you could hear the *ping* of the crowbar breaking up the top frozen layer down in the barn
iirc Harvestore still does sales of silage towers, as fuel and plastic costs go up we're going to see more electrically powered silage systems including enclosed bunkers that can use nitrogen gas sealing... the Harvestores can already do the inert gas sealing. It won't be long before we start seeing internally automated large silage clamps with roofs over them that last for decades and use gantry cranes or come with Kuhn drag-line (suspended by arm) electric service tractors inside.
Dude the dinosaur on the side of the retaining wall. Hah your dad is one of those guys you go to when you need some wise words said to you. I've taken two unloaders out both times were hotter then all get out come sound corn chopping time I'll be putting one in...
Being a young dumb teenager years ago, my job was to fork corn silage every afternoon for morning and afternoon feeding. Trying to be smarter back then, I'd pitch down 2 days worth then tunnel my way out. Thinking back,. 30 tons a year by hand, who'd ever do that.
There are still quite a few vertical silos being built. My understanding on the economics is they are in the "black" about 7 years after they are built.
In our area of Vermont, Amish families setting up new farms in neighboring NY will purchase old silos here, take them down (often a service to the owner) and rebuild them. They strongly prefer the solid blocks, and nothing bigger than 14 feet- the distance one guy told me he can throw across the silo with a fork while feeding out.
I could listen to your Dad talk all day.He just does a great job explaining everything never misses any detail
Same here!
Yeah he's great!!
I feel the same way! He is so knowledgeable and explains things very well.
He is the star of the show.
I really learned a lot on your video about opening a silo. I didn't know there was so many pros and cons with storing silage in a silo. My late Grandfather William Erickson Jr. had to Stave Silos with the Concrete Blocks that held over 700 tons of corn silage. My late Uncle Bill Erickson unless his wife Shirley and Dale had two silos on their farm. They haven't filled silos for years. They store their silage in White Silo bags. For years they chopped their corn silage with a Rotary forage harvester with a corn head and a head for chopping hay. They had two H and S Silage Wagons.
There were two 60 foot silos on the dairy I worked on for years in my youth. My wife found your channel. Love watching. Often explain things to her only to be followed by you seconds later. I’m a chemical engineer but vividly remember the lowest paying most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Thanks for producing these videos. We often watch these in the evening.
I had a old Patz in a Silo.
Old dad is one hell of a man
That silo unloaded falling when you were no longer in there working was definitely a moment of God's Devine protection 😃🙌❤
Your dad commenting on these things is a real improvement ..... nothing like hearing from an experienced dairy farmer. Really enjoy the videos.
Awesome seeing Dad and Son working together! Memories are made of times like this... 👍👍👍
I find your discussion about your barn most interesting. My great grandfather, Samual King, his older brother Harrison Grant King was a barn builder. Harrison build his first barn at age 21 and was a good record keeper, noting how much each barn he built cost to build. That would have been the early 1890’s and the cost to build a barn was around $800.00. Harrison during his barn career he built around 50 barn, 3 of which are still standing and in good condition and had been well keep in repair. My great grandfather’s wages that brother Harrison paid at the time was $0.50 per day. I’m 73 years old , and really love watching you guy’s run your dairy farm. Take my back as a youngster on our dairy farm here in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. I still have dairy farm friends I visit a couple times a year, especially during harvest time. Keep up the good work!
I loaded and unload silos just like that listening to your father reminds of my great grandma I hope you carry on the farm the way your dad does when he's gone small dairy's are fading it's a good life and something to be proud of I wish I could visid you and talk to your dad love the video really takes me back👍👍
When we were growing up, anything that required physical labor such as cleaning the gutters or pitching silage was referred to as the ARMSTRONG method. Bringing back memories!
No doubt.... Exactly the right way to put it.
I've got lots of stories about silos like you have but I'll limit this comment to 2. Besides the two 12' diameter wood stave silos that were built inside the big gambrel roofed barn in 1916, My dad built a 14'x50' cement stave silo next to the barn on the outside. The alternating white cement staves like yours at the top was a trademark of Madison silos. We usually filled it with corn silage the first week of school which was the first week of September back then. My Uncle who later replastered the silo to seal it for high moisture ground corn years later said my dad put the silage in too green and that's why the cement staves had deteriorated. I remember coming home from school and there was lots of dark brown juice seeping out of the silo and accumulating on a low spot of the cow yard. A cow we had, liked to drink the juice. When I interrupted her drinking she acted very strangely, shaking her head at me and aggressively pawing the pavement as though she was a bull about to charge. I think the brown juice had turned to moonshine and the cow was drunk. Not long before Christmas is when we opened up that silo like we saw you doing. One cold December the silage was already partially froze at the top. You had to break it up with a pick axe first. Clarence Bartnick who was a great hired man with a strong back, weak mind and prone to panic attacks, began opening up the silo by himself as my dad and me were both in school. (He was a schoolteacher farmer) When I got off the school bus. I heard a barely discernable cry for help coming from the silo. I told my dad about it and we went out to investigate. Clarence had thrown some large frozen chunks which had lodged crossways near the bottom of the chute. Unaware of this he kept on throwing the spoiled silage down the chute and when he finished the job he found himself trapped in the silo. It took us about 20 minutes to dig him out from the bottom and when he hit the ground he was having a panic attack. My dad sent him home and did the chores by himself that night.
I love the stories. It's the way history has been passed down through generations. The safest unloader is a silage fork. I'm sure not many people know the difference between the type of forks anymore. Everything is a "pitch" fork. Thank you for sharing the stories. It brings back great memories. Stay safe and God bless.
I don't want a silage fork or a pitch fork. Hahahaha
Yes, I used to have to clean out a cotton seed house using what is called a seed fork. The cotton seed house was house that seed was blown into until it could be loaded for shipping to the oil mills where the oil and meal are extracted for the food industry and livestock feed. High protein feed
Enjoyed your video. Remember we had a 14 by 40 that my dad had. My brother and I took turns forking it out. At lunch one day dad said he bought us a new silo unloaders. We jumped up from the dinner table and ran out to the truck. There was a brand new fork. My dad passed in 72 we now have 3 silos. Needles to say they have unloaders. Everything is expensive but what are you going to do when you are 77 and 79. Good luck to 😊😊😊😊😊😊
😄😊
Respect you have for your father is hard to come by these days. Dad is a wise man.
I was 10 years old when i started throwing silage down from our 12 × 35 silo we sold the cows when I turned 20 still miss the days when life was simple.
We have a 20x70 silo here on our dairy in central mn and they are still the most common feed storage around here for most guys milking less than 100 cows Kinda interesting how things change from place to place. The silo companies around here still build new silos generally 1-4 per yr depending on things. We’re actually hoping to build a new 14x70 in a couple yrs for high moisture corn. New silos run in price from around $20,000 for a small one like yours to well over $100,000. Biggest ones over here is a pair of 30x100 they’re huge silos on a 120 cow robotic milking setup the one is around 20yrs old the other about 10yrs old I say now. Love the videos 👍
I enjoyed your video very much. Very much like our own farm, but we are a older father son team. I am 61, and my son 35. We have 100 tie stalls and keep silage in trench silos with concrete floors, and also do balage. The information you are sharing is very accurate , and good information for non farmers. I grew up forking silage out of a 12x50 silo, and knew I didn’t want to climb a silo everyday, lol. Great video, great information. You are good embasadors for the dairy industry.
You guys definitely BRING BACK OLD MEMORIES FROM YOUNGER DAYS 😊😊
Nice video, reminds me of my grandfather's silo. He told stories of climbing the silo to feed cows in the winter and half way up he would meet a raccoon coming down. No where to go, you had to lean back against the chute and let the raccoon go by.
Thanks for your videos. I grew up on a dairy farm in Canton, New York way up north near the Canadian border. My Dad and Mom had 4 Boys and 4 girls and I was the oldest and I thought I was going to take over the farm. But, as I got older I decided to join the USNAVY and spent ten years in the service. My youngest brother, his wife and their daughter still live on the farm. My grand parents started the farm in 1917.
Take care and enjoy your life,
Paul Richardson
Your dad is such a good storyteller, those silo unloaders are a real pain and dangerous, I left a wrench on top of one once after we just replace the knives and ruined 5 or 6 of them, also have heard of lots of accidents we had a 20 year old kid about 4 years ago just down the road from us get caught in one very sad. We went to bunkers about 15 years ago and have never looked back.
I believe that's called an Armstrong unloader, isn't it? Thanks again guys. Cows love corn silage.
Hey there our silo unloaded was put in 1984 and it’s still running. There. Must be lots of silo unloaded not being us in you Area that you could throw into your silo preferably a butler James way. It muse cost a lot to pack you silo. M s u said you need to pack for 3 minutes a ton. At 1000 ton that’s 50 hours. That a lot of 5 dollar fuel plus plastic to cover silage. Just a thought maybe a big upright would be better than a pile
I like how you all can pitch silage and not get winded talking!!!
Gee,what FUN!! Any farmer that has had a silo has more then one story of a close call from silo gas or an unloader breakdown. I have climbed hundreds feet in a dirty dark silo chute. Half the time there is a bird 🐦 of some kind waiting to fly up your nose 👃. Must be fun up on nice hot silage on a 90 degree 😜 day. Yes I know what's that's like!! It's hard work. Great video again. Thanks 😊.
I grew up on a small dairy farm as well. now its turned into to a small beef farm but anyways we did the same with our silo. with high moisture corn. just shoveled it out!!
As a kid in the 1960's ,dad would say,go throw silage down,30 forks for 30 cows,...memories !!!
Remember shoveling corn silage at my uncles dairy farm.we had about 60 milking cows. Boy did that stuff smell. At 14 years old thought nothing about climbing up those stairs.
Looks sooooo familiar. Up until 1987 we had 2 wooden silos on the farm and I was the unloader. I experienced everything you talked about and did regarding the silo. Thanks for putting this video up. It brought back a lot of memories for me. I no longer have cattle and I tore those silos down in 1991, as the wood was getting bad.
History and memories are a great part of the farm it not only shows things that have changed but it shows how you have take pride in what you have and and kept things working and usable and taken care of. Thank you for another great video and looking forward to the next
Hey fellas kip siegler farming has 6 silos that they use with 3 ag bags they r in Michigan next door to u lol next door to me as well upstate new York great video as always GOD BLESS YOU AND FAMILY 🙏🏻👍🙂
So glad I found this channel. Farming the way you do is almost nonexistent. It takes me back when I was younger on my grandparents farm, and working on a few farms in high school.
When I was a freshman in High School myy dad had tried to break the condition of a frozen silo unloader and loosen the machine. In the process he pulled on the V-belts themselves as the motors pulley spun in place. In an instant the machine let loose. It was too late. Before my dad could let go of the V-belts his hand went around with the pulley and his thumb had been severed at the joint. It had cut clear through his winter buckskin mittens and clear through the bone. We had 5 silos with unloaders and I always fave them a lot of respect.
Opening up a new silo....bring a barn cat. Fun fun.
Thank You for the story. Thanks for sharing your videos.
Hello love watching your videos Iam 65 now I farmed in Ontario Canada with my dad ,we had beef cattle, I used to have to fork out the silo ,it was a 16 by 50 ,hard work in the winter. I can't get over the hills on your farm..I don't work on the family farm anymore, my dad passed away two years ago he was 95 ,loved farming. I still work on a large beef farm 4 hours away from the family farm ,it is a finishing feedlot, 2000 hd.Iam going to retire, end of April, would love to come and see your farm ,brings back a lot of memories. Thanks David Bryett
This video sure brought back memories of how we did it like you still do!!! The wheelbarrow was our way of moving lots of material around our barn. We quit milking in 2009 but could easily go back to it. It's like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it!!! I had a friend who was involved in a silo gas incident. He turned out ok but some have lung damage. Running the blower for 10 to 15 minutes is helpful if you need to go in.
I was lucky (or unlucky depending how you look at it) to have worked on a farm that filled silos. Huge silos too. Worst part for me was climbing the silo when the juices were running. It would be raining in the tunnel up the side of the silo. Pitched off many tons of silage, fixed the unloader a bunch. Another horror we had to deal with was the manual crank to pick the unloader all the way up. Seemed like you had to crank that handle over a billion times to get the unloader off the ground maybe 6ft! Lol memories. You guys do awesome with the explanations of everything.
Still putting new ones up here in PA, trenches and bags take up too much valueable land...............Setup as with a bottom unload "Big Jim" they are very efficient way to store and move feed. With a good blower/big tractor/blow deck to unload trucks you can really pound the feed out. For a small operation a tower silo is my choice, with good upkeep the unloader just works, and I would much rather throw a switch when its zero out and chip off some silage on the west wall every few days than screw with diesel equipment in that weather. Also, I can't believe you don't have a rope and pulley in the chute to haul up stuff once your up top instead of carrying it.
I think your dad is enjoying the TH-cam thing. I'm glad he is and appreciate him making the effort to do some filming. We had a 12X45 concrete stave silo on our farm and rats would often tunnel in the silage pile at the bottom of the tube to stay warm. I had one jump down on my head about 5 or 6 doors up when I was climbing up one evening. Needless to say, that freaked me out a bit.
High moisture shell corn in a silo and you'll have rats up the ass.
Nice video. Always interesting seeing your stories. We have two 18x50 silos that have Vandale unloaders. Used year round. Yeah, they took some labor and repairs, but not any more than other machinery used year round. And I felt like I could turn the silo's on, then go do something else. It was a good labor savings.
One was haylage and one was corn silage. Yeah, haylage takes more management to chop and blow into the silo. It can get sticky quick. Corn silage was always more fun and smelled better. Get the silo full, then level it out before lowering the unloader. In the winter it would freeze to the walls and when you finally got a week of warm weather, I'd have to get in and knock the 8" of frozen stuff off the walls. Not to mention climbing every couple weeks to lower the unloader another door. But I'd rather that then unload by hand! You guys work too hard! Watch out for mold spores.
Good memories!
Another great video! A silo filling video would be great!
Great explanations! One of the things that has replaced many of these silos is the round bale wrapped 'baleage' for hay.
Keep parts on hand, do as much maintenance as possible when the silo unloader is on the bottom. Just like your feeding equipment or anything else a guy uses maintenance is the key to trouble free silo unloaders. We have a few and also make a silage bag. I'd take them silo over that silage bag any day just my opinion
I totally agree!!!
I am a retired mechanical maintenance supervisor, and let me tell you, …..after 45 years of working with people in maintenance……either you got….or you don’t! You and your father …got it! Congratulations. This kind of knowledge doesn’t come with practice, it is innate, it’s in your DNA.
So what size is that silo? No I'm kidding 😂
Awesome video guys. That's a good idea sticking the pitchfork up on the door instead of leaving it in the silage. The date in the cement is really cool
That was a very informative video guy's
I love watching your videos. Your latest video on opening an old stave silo took me back to my childhood growing up on a Jersey dairy farm in the 50s and 60s. We had a 10x40 Portland castle t
top silo with no roof or unloaded. When we filled with corn silage, we put a picket fence extension on top to add five more feet to allow for settling. We also stacked three rows of picket fence lined with sisal craft paper for extra storage space.
Just recently started watching and i find your videos absolutey amazing. Always enjoy hearing older folks passing on what they know.
Great video guys it's what farming should be
Great stuff men👍👍👍👍👍👍
Very interesting and informative video. Your Dad is very articulate in how he explains everything. Really enjoyed it.
Enjoy listening to the history behind a silo
Really nice to hear the history of your family farm. It really shows how much you love it. Thank you
Used to fill four silos and then cap them with plastic too. I would tuck the plastic tarp around the outside the first day and then go up the silo a couple more times during the following week as the silage settled and tuck it down again. That made a big difference on how much spoilage was around the edges of the tarp. Had Hanson and Badger silo unloaders. They were easy to work on, a bearing here and there. Would do any major repairs when the silo was empty and the unloader was at the bottom. Never had issues with silo gas as was always careful in that respect. I actually prefer silos over bunker or piles. No mud and snow to deal with and less waste.
When I was a kid we had had a 14x40 brown tile silo no unloader (well me) and even with corn in the winter there was plenty of wear and tear on my body. Eventually it was replaced with a 16x60 Madison silo. We had a ring drive Starline unloader ring drive style and that spoiled me. We could crank it up to pitch silage by hand if we need too. That wasn't so bad. After about 10 years Dad built another 16x60 Rochester silo and word of mouth was that Badger unloaders we're the way to go. So Dad bought 2, one for each silo they have both been running strong for the better part of 40 years but we always plan on big maintenance when the silo gets empty. We always change out motors when it's at the bottom. Keep spare motors on hand for that get them rebuilt. You certainly prefer to change motors at the bottom. (Not that that ALWAYS happened. Now days if I were to build I guess I would go bunker but I would have to consider the cost of building the infrastructure for one.
Thanks. a bunch. Tons of information for my interests. I mostly custom farm Vineyards. So this was super interesting. You should be proud of your dad with all the loaded History. Truly grateful. Buck S.
Great video. I pitched out our silo in Hixton until 2009. Great feed. Keep the videos coming!
awesome video I have a 12x40 going up next spring reclaimed silo cost will be about 5 grand but dont have alot of room for a bunk. you can stack alot of feed on a small area straight up in a silo and like you said less waste alot of effort goes into crops and hate to lose any to bad storage keep the videos coming hope all is well
My family always used trench silos. I can remember as a child watching them being dug into the hillside. Your correct if you don’t pour concrete floors in them they become messes. Grandpa had a small trench with out a concrete floor, he didn’t have many cows because at the time he did grade C milk. So he just backed in and loaded tubs of silage, even that silo got in a mess. My uncles garden spot was just a short distance from the silos. So the waste was spread out and worked in there, probably the only black soil in the county. Remember we live down south a lot of red clay
We discoverd something awsome for tower silo. To get much more less mould on top when u open. But i im not sure if u use a type of acid in it when u chop it. Normaly we only have gras tho. But we put extra acid on top before we cover it. And we have a big water sausage arround the edge to make a heavy pressure. U fill it with s normal garden hose and empty it with a garden hose before opening🤩 but amazing video as allways🤩
Nice vide. Takes me back to my youth. Now you'll get me posting about my youth again. My Dad fed very heavily corn silage and used a product called Blenda Life as a supplement. Also, a small amount of hay, no grain or dry corn. Dairy barn had two 14 X 40s and a 20X 60. Smaller ones were hand emptied. Hard to imagine spending the money to put an unloader in a 12-foot silo. I could throw a fork full down the chute from the far side of one of the 14 footers. There was an unloader in the large one. On the beef feeder farm there was a 30 X 50 with an unloader on a tripod. Usually about 200 acres of corn but not all became silage. The two large silos were stave silos from Osseo. Yours looks like it was a Madison. The Osseo's had an inner layer that was troweled on. Not sure what it was, but it seemed like a concrete product. I started going up to throw down silage at somewhere between 8 and 10.
good for you keeping history alive.
Great video as always guys.
Is silo gas only when silage is still fermenting?? I've heard some farmers running a blower before entering the silo.
My uncle sold Patz unloaders and always tied his pant legs down by his ankles due to rats.
The short time I worked for a neighbor who had 4 silos. 2 small 14' silos for high moisture corn, a 16' silo for corn silage and a 20' for haylage. He would bag corn silage and when 16' was empty would refill with corn silage from the bag. 1 of the 14' silos would be dual purpose where he would put some haylage then some corn silage to help keep feeding consistency.
Amish in our area our still putting up silos.
What can your dad tell us about the rock walls in the barnyard. How old/who built them/why?
Another great video! Thanks!
Great to learn how this silo works, old always seems to keep working.
You men put out great educational videos. I'm grateful.
There is an outfit down by me in sw Wisconsin that builds new silos along with repair and reworking existing ones. I believe that last I heard a new 20’x80’ or close size was in the neighborhood of $120k+
Sillos are the way to go
I appreciate you and your dad explaining in detail what you do and why you do it. On Twitter there is always a debate between silo or no silo. Nothing but monuments around here anymore because livestock has all but disappeared in this area. A lot of harvestores were built here in the 60’s and 70’s and have sat empty since the 80’s
You guys are providing a service AND entertainment. You make it look easy and do a fantastic job at it. Thank you1
Hey guys, thanks for the video, very interesting, I grew up on a small dairy farm too but I’m in Australia 🇦🇺 very very different here, I love your videos, cheers. 😁
Great farm family! Blessings
Thank you so much for this video! My grandparents in Western Michigan had an old barn built in the early 1900s with a silo similar to yours. They never used the silo so it was really nice to see how you all go about using it in an old one like yours. Also, hearing the chickens clucking and crowing in the background was like music to my ears. I live in Los Angeles now and that is a sound that I never hear. It was a great treat watching this video and I look forward to seeing more from your bad ass farm!
I was always the guy to do the climbing! Had 2 16x60! We threw it out by hand, twice around as deep as you could get the fork, twice a day! Had a rat in the silo and I was just going to just stab it with the fork, It got running around, and then it ran up my leg! I'm out of here! Went and got the 20 gauge! Harvestore- A.O.Smith- after you buy then, they turn into I.O.Smith! We use to just run the blower when filling the silo and working in them!
Love the video. If only the cons of a silo weren't so limiting. An amazing feed storage concept
love watching your videos and how you guys explain how everything works. very informative
new subscriber , from south central wisc ,, MILTON, luv to watch the goings on in the farming ind ,,
great talk about silo i use a silo every year i have a unloader to but the longest mine sites is a few weeks becuse i use it all year it only last one year to empty i think that helps the unloader to work every day the ones that sit a lot i find have problems a lot just want to say not all of them are bad or have lots off problems
There were 4 12x40 silos on the family farms when I was a kid. I pitched everyday year round. Pick axe in the winter, even haylage in one. We would refill some with oatlage or barley silage sometimes and then feed that out before refilling in the fall with corn again
You guys have some great looking animals and the farm looks good it's neat to see them older dairy farms like you guys are on still producing healthy animals and milk I'm sure I have drank some of your guys milk since I live out here in Colorado
I'm just 66 years old, growing up in Michigan we used a 11'× 30', with an 11' dia. There was no unloader made for it, we had a silo taken down & added 20' to the 30footer, we filled it with high moisture ground ear corn for years, I unloaded it every year with a galvanized scoop shovel
Great video! I still fill and empty by hand a 12x40 poured concrete silo every year with corn silage. The kind of silo you still see standing alone in a field or woods by itself where the buildings are long gone. For a future video idea, does your family have a succession plan for the future? Are one of you brothers planning on taking over for your parents? It would be interesting to hear your family's thoughts on this since this is a hard thing for families to do nowadays with costs associated with it. Love the videos and look forward to the next!
Pretty good vid again guys . Thanks for sharing. Alot of producers have built modern facilities. Your farm just seems to belong & benefit all of us better with the care that you put into every aspect . And yep hats are nice 👍
Do you have any guys in your area who use silage bags? It’s fairly popular here in Ontario for smaller operations to add some extra capacity.
Check out end of this video if interested:
th-cam.com/video/yrhZasil2Yw/w-d-xo.html
Man you guys need to train some of these young males of today world they would understand life a whole lot better
Very good vidge
Thank you. Great work.
Great video. Neighbor would blow some silage in after putting the plastic down. We did bunkers and bags.can not beat good good corn silage.
We had a 14x40 silo that stood empty for years, until about 1992 when my dad decided to fill it. He could not find an unloader to fit it, or at least one he was willing to pay for. So we all had to throw down silage by hand from that silo. And yeah, in the dead of winter its rock hard, and you could hear the *ping* of the crowbar breaking up the top frozen layer down in the barn
There have been a few new silos poured in our area recently.
I used to work for Harvestor in thr 70`s. They were not cheap..
iirc Harvestore still does sales of silage towers, as fuel and plastic costs go up we're going to see more electrically powered silage systems including enclosed bunkers that can use nitrogen gas sealing... the Harvestores can already do the inert gas sealing. It won't be long before we start seeing internally automated large silage clamps with roofs over them that last for decades and use gantry cranes or come with Kuhn drag-line (suspended by arm) electric service tractors inside.
Dude the dinosaur on the side of the retaining wall. Hah your dad is one of those guys you go to when you need some wise words said to you. I've taken two unloaders out both times were hotter then all get out come sound corn chopping time I'll be putting one in...
Great video
Enjoy learning history of ur farm.
Being a young dumb teenager years ago, my job was to fork corn silage every afternoon for morning and afternoon feeding. Trying to be smarter back then, I'd pitch down 2 days worth then tunnel my way out. Thinking back,. 30 tons a year by hand, who'd ever do that.
There are still quite a few vertical silos being built. My understanding on the economics is they are in the "black" about 7 years after they are built.
so how do u get the silage out, crawl up and shovel it down everyday.?