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500592 
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Joined: 12 Feb 2013
Location: USA
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 Topic: Smallest silo?
Posted: 20 hours 34 minutes ago at 5:41pm |
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What’s the smallest silo someone has ever heard of? I’ve been day dreaming of getting a couple of beef cows. What’s the smallest silo someone has seen? Would it be possible to build an old fashion wood silo say 4’ or even 8’ in diameter and about 16’ tall to feed a bit of chopped grass or corn in the winter months? No much ag around here anymore so it would be hard to buy small amounts of silage for just a couple cows and it would be nice to chop the first crop early when it’s hard to make dry hay. I’ve got a sawmill and well equipped wood shop so making the staves wouldn’t be too hard. Any chance of this working or would it just be a large compost bin?
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dr p
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Location: new york
Points: 1690
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Posted: 18 hours 49 minutes ago at 7:26pm |
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I fill a 12 by 40 silo that has a surface drive uploader. I fill it in October and its gone by june. Remember if you fill an upright silo you are going to have a couple of inches of spoilage on the walls. You also need a certain height to create enough force to eliminate any oxygen. I would think a wooden structure may be your best bet. Having said that, you are trying something different make sure you get it tested before you feed it.
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DiyDave
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Joined: 11 Sep 2009
Location: Gambrills, MD
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Posted: 18 hours 47 minutes ago at 7:28pm |
It can be done, but sealing a wooden silo and keeping it sealed would be the hard part... 
I just remembered a story in farm show magazine, the title for the article is "silo trailer attracts attention". It's about a salesman's model of a Unadilla silo, 10 or 12' tall mounted to a trailer... The story has the guy's name and number or address in it (New York), as most do, in Farm show magazine, and you can search the archives for free, I believe, without being a subscriber... You may also want to search for Unadilla silo.
The whole trick to efficient silage is to remove enough each day, to keep spoilage to a minimum. This means knowing how much your hypothetical cows are going to eat, and sizing the silo, both in diameter and in height... There are formulas for all of this that I can't remember, but was taught back in college, in 1985...  |
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dr p
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019
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Posted: 18 hours 11 minutes ago at 8:04pm |
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Unadilla still exists. They make trusses now, but they did get out the ols tools to build a small silo for Delaware county fairgrounds
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DrAllis
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Posted: 17 hours 35 minutes ago at 8:40pm |
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Ever hear of a silage "bag" ?? that lays on the ground and gets sealed up when full ??
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DanWi
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Posted: 16 hours 43 minutes ago at 9:32pm |
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We have a 10x30 cement stave silo still standing. Last time we filled it in the 1980s it only took a short afternoon. I think the other silo grandpa had was a 12x30. That one got replaced by a 16x60. Wood stave silos were in the 10x30 range. They were made from high quality cedar. Some of those board outlasted the actual silos. Just make a ground pile on plastic and pack it and cover with plastic. We have a farmer we open fields for, when I help a silage crew in fall. We dump 2 to 4, 24 ft silage wagons for him depending on what fields he wants opened. That's what he does. Or you can do it between rows of round or big square bales with plastic.
Edited by DanWi - 16 hours 42 minutes ago at 9:33pm
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Lars(wi)
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Permian Basin
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Posted: 16 hours 41 minutes ago at 9:34pm |
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If you are only raising a few head of cattle, I wouldn’t even mess around with silage. Baled hay, and ear corn. Grind your own, is the route I would pursue.
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I tried to follow the science, but it was not there. I then followed the money, and that’s where I found the science.
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DMiller
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Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Location: Hermann, Mo
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Posted: 8 hours 43 minutes ago at 5:32am |
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Here the typical Is a Silage ‘bag’ or bale wrapped fermenting sleeve of silage they start at one end and feed until is gone. Or as with our Renter a Trench Silo, one aite they use is an old barn footered Concrete Floor fill and mound then cover with old billboard Ad tarps.
Edited by DMiller - 8 hours 42 minutes ago at 5:33am
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WF owner
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Joined: 12 May 2013
Location: Bombay NY
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Posted: 8 hours 33 minutes ago at 5:42am |
An old farmer near me who immigrated to Canada from Holland told me that when they first came out with square balers, farmers in Holland would lay plastic sheets on the ground and stack green (not dry) square bales on the plastic. When the stack was the size they wanted, they would wrap the plastic around the bales and secure it (maybe use tape?) so no air could get in. When they needed to feed it, they would then open one of the stacks and feed the ensiled hay out. I suppose they would reclose the unused stack until it was gone.
Edited by WF owner - 8 hours 32 minutes ago at 5:43am
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500592
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Joined: 12 Feb 2013
Location: USA
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Posted: 5 hours 27 minutes ago at 8:48am |
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These are probably real dumb questions to a normal farmer but I assumed a narrow silo may help with feeding enough off the face to keep it spoiling and wouldn’t require a bag filler or a large area that a covered pile would need. I also thought that the silo would be a nice looking building 🤣
Maybe a I could rig a small silo bag like a trash bag inside the silo to help prevent spoilage? I several people experimenting with silage in plastic 55 gallon drums but having a whole bunch of those laying around seems like a bit of a pain.
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WF owner
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Posted: 3 hours 41 minutes ago at 10:34am |
I remember (when I was a kid looonnnnggg ago) they used "silo paper" inside wood silos to prevent spoilage. I don't remember there be any spoilage around the sides. I believe the stuff they used was almost a tar paper that had some sort of tar coating. It was about 4' wide and pretty stiff.
I would assume plastic would work, but it might be tough to get it to stand up while filling the silo. Maybe the top could be stapled to the walls and the staples covered by the next higher row of plastic?
I don't know if the moisture in the silage would make the wood staves "swell" enough to seal up cracks.
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500592
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Location: USA
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Posted: 2 hours 38 minutes ago at 11:37am |
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I did read that people used roofing tar paper to cover the doors.
I found some smaller diameter bags / bale tubes that could be cut down to size and draped in just like a trash bag. As I fork the silage out the extra plastic could just be trimmed or possibly folded for reuse but is fairly inexpensive. Probably a lot more work to feed out of but I’m okay with it being more of a novelty. Plan b for the silo would be storing wood shavings.
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Dirt Farmer
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Joined: 15 Sep 2020
Location: Illinois
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Posted: 1 hour 24 minutes ago at 12:51pm |
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Instead if plastic barrels how about cleaned out chemical totes with the lids cut off then duct tape back on to seal. The plan B for a silo would have me nervous about wood shavings and sawdust and a chance for spontaneous combustion. If you want a neat addition to your homestead I’d look for an old wire corn crib and raise peacocks in it. That won’t help the cows but it would let you know when someone pulls in the driveway. Just a thought
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