Labor-Saving Way To FIll Bunk Silos
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"Our set-up for grinding high-moisture corn makes it easy to fill our bunk silos," says Steve Meerman, Coopersville, Mich., who positions a Massey Ferguson 260 chopper and a 150 bu. gravity wagon on stilts near the opening of his bunk silos, mounted on a concrete pad.
Meerman says his 5 bunker silos are his "best buys" in recent years. "We stopped using our upright silos and sold the unloaders along with all our dry hay equipment, self unloading wagons, augers, and so on - a total of 32 pieces of equipment in all. Everything was replaced with a mixer wagon to feed cows and one dump wagon to pull behind the chopper."
He built 5 bunkers 100-ft. long and from 16 to 20 ft. wide with 8-ft. high poured concrete sidewalls. He stores high-moisture corn, silage and haylage in different bunks and then mixes them before feeding. Each silo is sealed with plastic and tires are laid side-by-side in a solid layer across the ntire bunk.
One of the problems Meerman had to solve was figuring how to load corn into the bunks. His gravity wagon set-up lets trucks and wagons dump their load and head back out to the field. There's no waiting to unload and corn can be piled on the concrete pad if the combine is too fast or the chopper isn't running.
The gravity wagon feeds the chopper (a standard model with a 3/4-in. screen) which chops the corn and blows it into the front of the bunk. Then he uses a 256 Versatile loader tractor to push and level the chopped corn.
"My only regret is that we didn't put up our bunk silos sooner. Milk production has increased and our harvests are much more timely. I hope more farmers will realize they don't need the grief and trouble of upright silos," says Meerman.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Steve Meerman, 14238 60th Ave., Coopersville, Mich. 49404 (ph 616 837-8251).
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Labor-Saving Way To FIll Bunk Silos CROP STORAGE Silos (50) 14-3-35 "Our set-up for grinding high-moisture corn makes it easy to fill our bunk silos," says Steve Meerman, Coopersville, Mich., who positions a Massey Ferguson 260 chopper and a 150 bu. gravity wagon on stilts near the opening of his bunk silos, mounted on a concrete pad.
Meerman says his 5 bunker silos are his "best buys" in recent years. "We stopped using our upright silos and sold the unloaders along with all our dry hay equipment, self unloading wagons, augers, and so on - a total of 32 pieces of equipment in all. Everything was replaced with a mixer wagon to feed cows and one dump wagon to pull behind the chopper."
He built 5 bunkers 100-ft. long and from 16 to 20 ft. wide with 8-ft. high poured concrete sidewalls. He stores high-moisture corn, silage and haylage in different bunks and then mixes them before feeding. Each silo is sealed with plastic and tires are laid side-by-side in a solid layer across the ntire bunk.
One of the problems Meerman had to solve was figuring how to load corn into the bunks. His gravity wagon set-up lets trucks and wagons dump their load and head back out to the field. There's no waiting to unload and corn can be piled on the concrete pad if the combine is too fast or the chopper isn't running.
The gravity wagon feeds the chopper (a standard model with a 3/4-in. screen) which chops the corn and blows it into the front of the bunk. Then he uses a 256 Versatile loader tractor to push and level the chopped corn.
"My only regret is that we didn't put up our bunk silos sooner. Milk production has increased and our harvests are much more timely. I hope more farmers will realize they don't need the grief and trouble of upright silos," says Meerman.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Steve Meerman, 14238 60th Ave., Coopersville, Mich. 49404 (ph 616 837-8251).
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