Getting ready...

Tomorrow is the big day.  It's time to transfer the ag bag to the silo...

Typically, when we chop corn silage in the fall, we are able to produce enough silage to feed all of our animals for the year.  That's wonderful, considering the price of corn!  What we lack, however, is storage space.  So, we filled both silos here at home, put some silage in the old tile silo at the other farm for our dry cows and heifers, and put out an ag bag for extra storage.  The ag bag creates an air tight environment where the silage can cure and remain unspoiled until we are ready for it.  Basically, it's a horizontal silo.

The cold weather and frozen ground make a good combination for making the transfer..

Yesterday afernoon my job was to crawl, walk, slip and slide around the top of the bag, cleaning the snow off with a barn broom.  That was interesting!  Can you picture someone wearing rubber soled boots on a slippery, wet, round plastic bag, trying desperately to keep from falling?  I usually carry the camera, so sorry...no pictures! :)

One of the biggest challenges of putting out an ag bag is keeping the animals away.  Crows are the biggest culprits for causing damage.  Those owls are supposed to help scare them away...so is the shot gun...fired into the air to scare them off whenever they settle too close for comfort!  The smallest of holes can allow air to get into the bag, causing spoilage...Now you know why we won't let the kids play on top of the bag, fun as it may be.

The small hole below was probably caused by one of the dogs as she tried to climb up onto the bag.  When I was clearing off the snow, I found two more small holes near the top that looked like they would have been made by birds.  I taped them up, hoping that the damage is minimal.  We'll see tomorrow!

The silo unloader needed to be raised to the top of the silo, and will be lowered back down to rest on top of the new silage.  I helped Jim to get it set up, and he and Eric cranked it by hand to the top...this is looking up from near the bottom of the silo...

 

Jim then climbed the outside of the silo to check on the gooseneck, which determines which silo the silage goes into as it is blown up the chute.  There was a problem, so he had to remove it, lower it by hand, and take it to the neighboring welding shop for repairs.  It went back up this morning, hand over hand with a rope...that's one heave piece of metal!  You can see Jim up at the top on the platform between the silos...

There was one more obstacle before we could say we're ready to go...the snow!  Ken, the man who will be masterminding the operation, brought his four wheel drive tractor over, and moved lots of snow to make it possible to get the trucks from the bag to the silo..

It can be challenging to find just the right time to transfer the bag...but we think we're ready to go.  It will be a busy day tomorrow!