silage cuttin

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Cutting silage last june

[td25c]

That brings back memories.We cut corn silage when we had cattle.We filled one upright and a"bunker" silo.It made good feed.Do you cover the silage with plastic or leave it open? I like your equipment and picture's.

[Richardjw~]

whats that in the forager? a 1255?

to be hon. i'd have thought a wheeled digger was a bit unstable on the pit. I've been in a few tricky places with my 655C and thought how unstable it is

[Bellboy]

Nice pics, love the TLB, what year?

It will soon be silage season here, and already Cedara Agricultural college has all their maize ready. The way the do it, is they get the silage cutter to go in, cut the maize, and then dump it into tractor drawn dumping trailers. The tractors the take it to the silage pits, where they use a wheeldozer to pull the tractors up the silage heap, so that the silage is spread out nicely, then they use the wheeldozer to level it out and compact it, and they do it all over again. I must say that it is a very interesting way of doing things. I am bending my dad's arm to get him to arrange to operate the wheeldozer when they do it...

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A local contractor at work last summer,at the moment they are tooling up for this season.

ps Its a 1455 of 1985 vintage,imported from holland about ten years ago.

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[Steve Frazier]

I don't think I've ever seen hay chopped before, it's all baled around here. The only thing we see chopped is corn.

[td25c]

The "green" chopped hay is generaly fed to dairy cows in my area.When I was a kid we would let the hay cure or dry and then run it thrugh the chopper,then blow it in the center of the barn which had manger stalls on each side.In the winter you pitch the hay off each side to the cattle.It was good feed but a little slow in putting it up.after we got a round baler we never chopped hay anymore.

[stock]

Silage as its called around here is normally mowed about 48 hours before it picked up,(depending on the weather) to allow it to wilt (reduce % of water).Some operations use a 10m (32ft) self propelled mower which leave it in a single swarth,others use tractor drawn 3m mowers with groupers to leave a 6m swarth. the cost of harvesting silage /acre is up to 110 euro in the pit ready for covering,

Baling on the other hand is
mowing 20/acre
baling 8/bale @14 bales/acre
Wrapping 8/bale @ 14bales / acre
haulage 2/bale


Total 272 e/acre

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[td25c]

The self propelled chopper,tractors and dump wagons looks like a quick and efficient way to do it.I allways wanted dump wagons,we had gehl side discharge wagons.They were ok for loading into the blower but slow when dumping at the bunker silo.we mostly cut corn silage.I do remember when we chopped hay to put in the barn it had to be pretty dry or it would heat up and posibly catch fire.I kind of miss it all now that we dont have cattle any more.

[Gadgetman]

This brings back memories. Spent 4 seasons on a custom crew running the ole farmhand 3 row with the screaming 6V92's. Nothing like having a 3' dia. flywheel spinning 1000 rpm yielding 6-20lb knives right in front of the cab. Remember the day a flywheel shaft broke sending the lid sky high,and the 300 lb flywheel 60 rows away. Also remember your ears ringing and the end of the day. Those were the days,lol

We ran Ford Luivilles with the walking beam suspensions and allison automatics. 24' silage beds