Starting a Silage Bag

I have a 8' Kelly Ryan silage bagger and often have a problem keeping the base of the "backstop" down on the ground, tends to ride up on the bag while filling to the point that I take the Skid Steer and set the lift arms on top of the backstop to hold it down for fear it will rip the bag. My question is how much bag after the knot/bun is tied do you pull off the tunnel to tuck under? How far away do you have the tunnel from the backstop when starting a bag 5' 7'? I use a click type toque wrench to set my 40lbs brake tension which is well below the strech factor of the Up North bags that I use.

Please explain how you set up your bagger. Thanks.

I always set the back stop about four or five folds of the bag back from the bagger

I have an eight ft Kelly as well. I have had it for 25 years and have done a good bit of custom work as well. The back stop riding up is normal and I use my skid loader as well. I pull off enough plastic to tie my bag shut and no more. I set the backstop so the legs touch the bag pan. We tighten the brakes tight and start bagging. When silage is starting to fill the bag out some we take the tractor out of park. When the bag is full and the silage is level with the back of the bagger we start letting some tension off so the tractor starts moving forward. With my 4020 or 4230 I can tell by how hard the tractor works how tight the bag is. A few years ago we had a seven ft tunnel made for hi moisture corn and now that we only have beef cows and feeder cattle we bag everything in seven ft bags. Do not worry to much about over streching the bag unless you have a real big tractor. I use Up North bags as well. We did blow one up this summer. We chopped oats that were in head and finished late in the evening and closed the bags with two 2x4's. This year the oats gased bad. The next morning the whole bag was blown up bigger than a 10 ft. bag. The stretch marks were 36 inches and the sides of the bag were grey from the plastic being streched so thin. We vented it but while it was blown up some of the feed had fallen out and after it went down there were big air pockets. We had to rebag that one. First time ever having any problems. Tom

We always set the backstop right up to the tunnel with just enough bag to tie it off. We'd park the loader bucket against it at the top to keep it from pushing back to far before it had enough weight to push the tractor. Never had issues with the backstop wanting to climb.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I have to watch or the backstop will go under the bag not over. Try putting a couple of loads in without much tension this fills the bag and lets it set flat on the ground then put the pressure to it. This is how I have always done it. I rarely get a bag where the back stop lifts up this way.

I will say this too. A Kelly Ryan bagger works fine but is not quite the bagger as other makes. AG Bag and Versa are a much better bagger. IF you look the back stop is made different on those brands too. Matter of fact most Versa ones do not even use and external back stop and cables.