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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-10-07          65786

well after my ahying adventures I am becoming a more well rounded converted cityboy farmers parentice:)

I helped my friend bring in some corn for his dairy cows. We used 3- JD 4020s. One guy chopped the corn and I ferried the filled chuck wagon to my friend who was augering it into the silo.

We were goign pretty good, as fast as I could exchsnge a filled cart for an empty the "chopper" was ready. I liked it but I like the pace and process of haying better. Although augering silage is much nicer than stacking thousands of bales!

So lets see I bought/sat on my first tractor this July and so far have baled, raked, ted, chopped, augered,carted and used the following tactors in just under 3 short months.

JD 4020
JD 3020
IH 244
Ford 1910

My wife say when I get into something I get all obsessive about it..she is soooo wrong;)


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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2003-10-08          65788

F350 Sounds like they like ya. But the freeze season is on the way and nothing beats fixing or unthawing a spreader with the "stuff" dripping on ya.

By the way the best way to learn to spread is: Always spread with a good wind at your back. A cold wind in the face is hard on ya. ;-) ....

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Chief
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4297 Southwest MiddleTennessee
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2003-10-08          65798

Better watch out Scott; they're gonna have you milking cows before its over with. ;-) Word to the wise about that......NEVER stand behind a cow that is about to sneeze! Don't ask me how I know. :-) ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-10-08          65799

Hopefully before you try learning to milk cows, somebody teaches you how to tell Bulls from Cows, that's important too...... ;->>

Best of luck. ....

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DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2003-10-08          65813

Isn't it strange?

Augering is ok, even good, when you do it on a tractor, but not such a good idea when operating an aircraft.

Know what I mean, Chief?

....

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Chief
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4297 Southwest MiddleTennessee
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2003-10-08          65814

Definitely not good on the augering part in aircraft! :-) ....

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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
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2003-10-08          65818

F350, we could have used your help when I was growing up.
Except for picking up rectangular bales of hay and putting them in the barn, I liked the farming OK. Cattle and horses were also OK, but I really got to dislike pigs. It seems that they pick the hottest and coldest times of the year to pop out a dozen little ones and you have to deal with them, right now!

There is an old joke about a farmer that wins the lottery. A newspaper reporter asks him what he is going to do now. The farmer replys "I guess that I will keep farming till the money runs out." ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-10-08          65851

Well I help for acouple of hours today. Had to keep driving the tractor through the stream to get the carts today, that was fun. The water only was about 12"-18" deep but when he first said go across the stream I hadn't seen it so my reaction was "there's a bridge right?" :)

No milking cows for me, once I awhile I will "bottle" feed one of the calves and I also feed the heifers. That's as far as my limited cow skills go. The first time I went to feed the heifers the heard me coming and charged into the pen causing me to step to the side into some mucky cow mess which removed my boots it was so thick :( very embarrassing. They hear my diesel truck and think it is the tractor that usually brings the food, now I shut the motor and they never know I was there until I pull away ;)

He doesn't have bulls at the one farm but across the road another guy leases some space and he has some beef cows and the bull I met was NOT friendly. They are behind a strong fence so no problems there either.

I no nothing of pigs but my wife and daughter have been talking about acquiring a couple so who knows.

....

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AC5ZO
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2003-10-09          65880

A couple of pigs for butchering are not much of a problem. The problems arise when you are raising dozens or hundreds of pigs. My least favorite time was when they had little ones. As I said, it was in the worst weather. You always had to worry about the adults squashing the littles ones and sometimes the boars were a problem.

On one occasion a boar came up behind my dad and sunk a tusk into his leg at the ankle and ripped the back of his leg open up to the knee. It took over a hundred stitches to close. There were also accidents involving other big hogs and we would hear about small kids that were killed nearly every year. But these injuries were all on large production farms that raised pigs. Keeping one or two is a different matter entirely.

Hogs can also get pretty domesticated and if they become pets, it creates other difficulties. Never name a hog that you intend to eat. ....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-10-09          65900

Definately stacking square bales is one of the worst jobs on the farm. Although you really only need them for horses today.
I can remember the large dairy farms and enormous stacks of hay in the barn. It about kills me to load 100 bales in today.
I bought bales off a different farmer this year, smaller bales. Farmer Brown like the large bales. They nearly killed me lifting the 70-80 lb bales over my head to fill the barn loft.
The other big no no with piglets is bottle feeding. It is very difficult to make bacon after raising them on the bottle. Much more personality than a cow, become more like killing the dog. ....

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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-10-10          65933

The thread started on the subject of chopping corn, and it reminded me of another incident that occurred on the farm. We did not auger chopped corn, but had a big blower to fill the more modern silos. But we also had trench silos.

Trench silos are like a basement that you would dig for a house except that they are open on one end. The chopped corn is dumped in there and is compacted. We used tractors to do the compaction. The tractor would drive over the chopped corn and press it down much like you do when doing landscaping. Eventually you get the trench packed all the way up to the top of the walls which are higher than your head when sitting on the tractor.

The only time that I have seen a tractor flip over backwards was while compacting one of those trench silos. My dad was driving the tractor into the open end of the trench and up onto the almost full silo. It was at a very steep angle and something happened to cause the tractor to come straight back over and land on the hood upside down.

Nobody got hurt, and the details of how he got off or out have kind of faded, but it was a pretty frantic moment.

To use the chopped corn, you drive your FEL into the open end of the trench and remove scoops until the trench is empty. ....

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Chief
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4297 Southwest MiddleTennessee
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2003-10-10          65934

Around my folks farm, alot of farmers use a silage system similar to what you are referring to Mike. Only thing is they use a GIANT plastic baggy and fill it up like you mention. ....

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AC5ZO
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2003-10-10          65941

Our trench silos had plastic linings to make them air tight, but they still had concrete walls. Once the trench was packed, it would get another covering of plastic.

We had a pretty large farm (1000 acres 95% tillable). The oldest developed part of the farm had the trench silos and the house and barns near them are nearly 100 years old. In the late 1950s, my parents built a newer house on a different part of the farm and trench silos were replaced with newer technology. They retired in the late 1970s and built another house on another part of the farm and sold off most of the tillable land. ....

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Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2003-10-10          65961

Vertical silo's have about the highest cost per ton for storage, the bags second, bunk the cheapest. Best quality is the (unripped) bag. Bunks are the most economical but also have the most amount of waste but they also can process a better feed for the animals. ....

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AC5ZO
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2003-10-10          65971

I remember the fermented smell of the silage mix after it had "aged." Some of it was pretty pungent.

Since you can ferment grain, I always wondered if the silage mix that we were feeding the cattle had some alcohol as well as other things in it as a result of the fermentation. The cattle seemed to like it well enough. ....

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F350Lawman
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 411 Goshen, NY
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2003-10-10          65985

I think the silos are close to full so soon I will help fill that concrete bunker. He has a couple of hydraulic dump carts to fill it with. ....

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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2003-10-11          66000

Just a caution note 350. Never enter a silo with corn silage in it that has started to heat. The gas is deadly. I'm sure your friends have hopefully told you.

Usually the senario is: Silo almost full, late in day, other chores to do, we'll level off or move around in am before we start filling.

If you do have to enter the silo make sure the blower is running and let someone know you are going up to level, put in more doors etc.

For as much as farmers know about this there are still to many accidents from this usually the kids going up just to help out. ....

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