Mixing Feed In Pictures

Over summer we harvest 3 - 4 alfalfa crops and in fall we harvest corn, chopping the plants and then blowing this feed into our 20' x 60' stave silo's.  The closest one is full of corn silage and the further one is full of haylage.  The feed is blown up the pipes on the left.  You can see a caged ladder that can be used to climb the silo on the outside and look in a door from above.  After the feed in blown in, its own weight packs it down and it ferments which is what keeps it from spoiling. These silo's have unloaders that grind the feed off the top and blow it through a pipe to a door.  From there it is dropped in a tube to an elevator below.  The haylage silo has a short elevator into the main elevator.  The corn silage drops directly into the main elevator and then goes directly into the mixer. A silo like this holds approximately 500 tons of feed.  In fall our corn is shelled and blown through a pipe into our 20' x 60' harvestore.  This is a glass lined, oxygen limiting, steel silo where the corn also ferments.  This silo is full of individual corn kernels and has an unloader in the bottom.  The corn gravity flows down and the unloader drops it into a hopper and auger where it is delivered to a 4'x4'x8' holding bin in our barn.

The corn gravity flows out of the bin and is held by a slide that closes.  We use ropes downstairs to open or close this slide.  Below the slide is a flipper that deflects the corn to either the tube going to the green/red roller mill on the right or to the orange hammermill on the left.  This too is changed with the pull of a rope.  The roller mill on the right is used for the steer and calf feed.  The hammermill on the left is used for the cow feed.  The ground feed is then dropped into a hopper and into a tube where it drops into our grain cart.

The ropes to the left open and close the bin.  The red ropes switch between processors.

Hammermilled corn is fine like cornmeal.  This makes it more digestible for the cows.  This cart is parked and ready to unload into the auger hopper.

This is the heart of the project...the mixer.  The elevator on top delivers the haylage and corn silage.  The corn is delivered by being dumped into a hopper and augered up into the mixer. (red auger in front)  The protein mix is delivered into the mixer via the auger on the right that dumps into a metal slide.  The large overhead door allows us to deliver feed out of our silage bags by dumping it into the mixer with the skid steer.

Our custom mix protein is delivered by bulk truck  through a cover on top

Corn after it goes through the roller mill.

The haylage is actually brown but the flash makes it look this color.

Corn silage coming into the mixer on top of the haylage

Corn Silage

We have a battery operated feed cart to deliver the mix to the cows

The original plan for the day was to try and sell steers but it was so foggy that I could hardly see the barn from the house.  The only projects for the day were fixing the flashing lights on our big tractor and digging around in the yards some more.  It is starting to feel more like March with everything thawing the start of the "mud" season.  Colder by next week.