harvestore revisit

With a small herd size, (feeding small amounts each day), will a Havestore slow down spoilage that a stave silo cannot?

Yes, provided it stays airtight. Ben

NO. The whole deal with the Harvestore was that when done filling you seal it and it was supposed to be air tight until you open it to feed. Once feeding it would go fast enough to keep spoilage to a hardly noticeable level. At a low use rate it will have a constant source of oxygen to enable aerobic decomposition.(rotting)

As said below, yes, provided it is air tight. In today's world, a lot more cost effective method to make small amounts of fermented forage would be to make baleage. You can have someone custom bale and wrap for you any number of bales, you do not have the big $$$ upfront cost, or the big $$$ maintenance cost. They weren't called blue tombstones for nothing .

Locally, the dairymen follow the "get big or get out" theory. The volume of silage they produce makes it too expensive to buy harvestores, or stave silos either. The ones I have seen have a concrete slab on top of the ground and concrete slabs at an angle on the sides. They cover the silage with plastic held down with old tires.

KEH

I had an 18 by 45 wood silo with a Jamesway V111 and if adjusted properly would have minimal spoilage. I only had 33 milking with 10 to 15 head of heifers and dry cows. The Jamesway unloader is suspended off of cables and when filling has a power distributor to throw the silage against the outside walls for better compaction. I also had a Fiberfunnel in the chute to keep it clean. Anyone who has had haylage down the back of their neck knows what I'm talking about! I help out on a small farm now and they made a pile and will have a lot of waste. I sold the silo and unloader and went to an Ag bagger and had good feed but was not very handy to feed for my setup. Winter always seemed to be 6 months long and trying to keep a loader tractor going was my big chore. Another neighbor has 2 silos one for haylage and one for corn. In about 15 minutes he's done feeding cows and both unloaders are old but serviced and maintained.

Yes, like this one!

I recall a farm management tour as a Cornell University student back in the 1980's where a farmer we visited contended the inefficiency of the upright silo in large number livestock operations. It takes time to rattle silage up a 9 inch blower pipe and it takes additional expense in terms of equipment and labor to fill more than one upright silo at a time. The farmer no doubt was right in his situation but I have seen with some operations that a tremendous amount of spoilage occurs with bunkers. The bunker spoilage can be minimal with good management but some guys want to see wheels turn and silage fly and get to covering and weighting whenever down the road. I think there is nothing wrong with an upright if it already exists on the farm. As somebody else said there is no mudding a bag out for several months or getting a loader tractor going with an upright. If the upright is not already present I think custom hire bagging would be the way to go for a small operation to minimize upfront costs. Each storage medium has its advantages and disadvantages. Climbing an upright for some is darn near physically impossible and I know I would have issues much past 40 feet especially outside the drop chute. Keeping a broom handy around the unloader does a lot in terms of slowing rusting of the unloader if kept clean periodically and especially in a period of disuse.

Dad still has a 20X60 and a 20X90 standing on the farm, but they haven't been used in years. If I remember right, Dad built the 20X90 for $80,000 in 1991. We fed a 60 head herd out of them & the feed stayed fresh. There's a sealed door on the front of the unloader to keep the air out after each use.

As far as I know, they only had them in 20 footers, but I'd heard the Canadians were buying up old Harvestores and building them 30X110. Don't see how that would work since they're bent to make 20 foot rings.

I've heard some nicknames like Bankruptcy Tubes, and Idiot Tubes. Also heard that if you count how many Harvestores are on the farm, that's how many time the guy went for an operating loan in the 80's (implying the banker made the farmer borrow the money to build that Harvestore on top of the operating loan to "protect his investment").

Around here most were called "Blue Tombstones"

Yes it will work. I currently feed 21 head out of a 80 footer and it works good. Most of the time, if they do not work, it was because of management issues. And yes, we have had them for 40 years and they worked great for us.

The only thing really wrong with them is the cost to maintain the darn thing. You guys think equipment dealers can charge, buy parts for a bottom unloader. Feed is the best out of a silo, cleaner around it and takes way less ground space, and no plastic to deal with, but unloading speed and if a break down you need a backup feed source or don't feed them till it is fixed. As far as filling it is a little slow but not all that bad as long as the tractor on the blower is big enough.

The Blue River Harverstore guy came here one day and was talking to him, they use to make a 30 footer then shut down
for awhile stated back up making them and the biggest they make is like a 28 by 130 if memory serves me right, but yes
they made bigger then 20 foot, neighbors have a couple 24 or 25 footers 90 foot tall.

I have two Harvestore silos. They work IF you know how to manage them. I pressure test them every year. I also moved the air bags out of the silos into the eve of the hay barn. Since I did that the management is much easier. You can feed as little or as much as you want and have good feed. You should shut the door on the unloader every time your done. I go through my unloaders twice each year. It is not hard to get them out if they are in the right position and a total nightmare if they are in the wrong position.

The most common problem with a Harvestor silo is the unloader. Guys will run them until the chains are so loose and dull they would not move Styrofoam peanuts. Then the farmer is mad when it will not feed out rock hard silage that was cut too long and made too wet.

Things to do to make life with a Harvestor silo easy:
1) Maintain the unloader in a timely manner. This means keep the chains tight and the drags sharp.
2) If your doing hayledge then make the moisture content be in the low 30s and keep the cut length under 1 1/2 inch. LONG cut wet hayledge is like concrete in the bottom of the silo.
3) Keep the seals in good shape. Check them for leaks.
4) Shut the top lids and bottom doors ASAP after use. Just common sense on keeping Oxygen out of the silo.
5) If your in a hurry to feed large quantizes of feed each day then knock them down go with a bunker. You can not crowd the unloaders an have any good luck.

Blue coffins out this way.

Still some around here,but several have hit the ground.

They called them blue shafts around here. A lot of them went up in the seventies, and came down in the eighties. I'm not sure if it's true, but they used to say you could figure $10,000/foot to put one up.
The ones that are left are mainly for high moisture corn.
Pete

uprights had/have their place. still alot in use around here. for a small farm without much if any hired help they're great. flip the switch and your done. like everything keeping it lubed and maintained well is key. top or bottom unloader. a local guy here fills the upright and then piles some on the ground and covers it. once the upright is 1/2 empty he'll blow the pile into the silo. I guess they don't like to feed with a skid loader off the pile.

some guys here have both an upright and a bag. feed the upright when its cold out and the bag when not so cold. but seems to take them 2x longer to feed the bag or bunker.

when i was at Gehl seen a few different types of bunkers from all dirt to all concrete built into a hillside so you could dump from the top or run a self unloading wagon from the top. he then covered the top with defective chocolate and would let it melt in the sun and seal the bunker. Then he would just feed off the chocolate and everything I guess the concrete floor dirt side ones i saw supposedly kept well. don't know how. their hired help couldn't pour p1ss out of a boot if you wrote the directions on the heal.

several around here had the concrete uprights with the center unloading chain flail setups that feed out the bottom. only 1 or 2 out of many i know that is actually in use still.

if you don't already have an upright i'd think getting one even used would be cost prohibitive. i'd hire a bagger to bag i think.

here you go.

you can't not by a harvestore after you watch this. pretty cool actually. that is one big electric motor stuffing the silage up the pipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqLQXkh5PA

Better to go by facts....in 1976, my 20x50 (nominal dimensions) corn unit with sweep auger unloader was $22,000. It holds about 9000 bu. The following year, my 20x70 with Goliath haylage unloader was 37,000. That"s under 1000 per foot, not 10,000! How much drying gas would I save with the corn unit on 9000 bu per year?

First units, late 40s?, were 17 feet in diameter, common height was 40 feet. Later, 20 foot dia, then went to 25 feet.

Harvestore silos work good but ,seem to be to costly for most farmers. I know of more that stand empty , then I know of that are filled . Bunks and bags rule here .

Hey JD. I have a couple too. Grin. Course I can't store much in mine. Let's see if the pic turns out.

We put up our second 20x80 with rebuilt unloader in '92 for $37,000. That is less than $500 per ft if you want facts.