Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Upright silos?

Does anyone fill the uprights any longer?

It has been a long long time but our silo,like most, was next to the barn.The milk inspector decided that wasn't sanitary for a diary and we had start doing a trench silo.

Most farmers and ranchers I know use trench silos too. Easier to move the ensilage with a front end loader. A lot less labor intensive all around. A lot of them dump it in a grinder and mix some form of forage with it,

Oh, sure.

We sold our last 2 upright silos about 5-6 years ago. When we sold the dairy cows in 2011 we started filling bags for the beef cattle as it was much easier to feed out of the bag when cattle were outside. We figured it was better to get a little money for the silos instead of letting them deteriorate and fall on the barn.

A lot of the Amish and Mennonites here still use them. Most of them don't have tractors with loaders, so they can't use the trenches. I can remember when there was a lot of corn here that was chopped for silage. Not so much anymore.

We use to chop sweet corn when it got little too old to eat, but we planted more than we could ever use. Then cut alfalfa and put in layers with the corn in the silo. We would mow the alfalfa, rake it that day then bale the next morning. Take it right to the chopper.Those green alfalfa bales were heavy and two boys had a hard time throwing them on the wagon

We never had a loader. We wheelbarrowed it from the upright silo to the alley way between the stanchions.When we had to go to the trench silo, that meant pulling the wagon to the trench, shoveling it on and , hauling it to the barn, and then wheelbarrowing it in. Twice a day in the snow got old real quick.Especially when we had to do it and the milking before school.

It sure made good milk and I think the cows were drunk all winter

I fill 4 upright silos and 2 pits. I like silos, just go out and flip the switch.

A friend grew up farming outside of Wichita. They had two silos glass lined. Don't know how common they were.

Mike, AO Smith Haveststores? Blue color?

Don’t know. They are no longer on his family farm.

Spent time hauling wagons and blowing silage into uprights while I was in HS.

In college, we filled a couple at the beef barn with haylage. Spent more than a few days in those working on the unloader in the 90+ degree high humid midwest summers.

Still a fair number of harvestores being used around the country.

I can remember as a kid in the middle 80's filling the concrete upright silo a few times, but eventually dug a pit in the hillside to use instead. Uncle bought grandpas dairy after it had sat idle for 15 years in the early 2000's, he just packed it in a pile at ground level or bagged it. He sold his cows a few years ago. I think dad is still picking up bag remnants that blew over to his place from not being disposed of....