# Building bunker silos on new rented dairy



## Bob M (Feb 11, 2012)

We have rented a dairy farm near us and will be milking our low group there. Up right silos in bad shape, here are some pictures of the bunker silos we are building. Also putting new freestalls in old barns.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Looks good.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

That excavator looks like the way to handle those blocks.

We're putting up another hoop building just to park the semi, tandems and the straight trucks in. Handling the blocks with the backhoe and it does alright but the excavator gotta be better. You're blocks look to be different dimension though, ours are 2' x 2' x 6' and weigh a touch under 4000 lbs apiece.


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## Bob M (Feb 11, 2012)

Yes, ours are 3'x3'x6' and weigh about 8000lbs. These block were much cheaper than the smaller ones.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Wow, those are some chunks of cement now. Thats why they looked shorter to me was the larger dimension.


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

The techinical name is 'Perryblock'


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Well I hope you have taken precautions from the owner so you wont get screwed over after investing that much money into their operation


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Hanson Silo is supposed to come lay a new 36' x 140' bunker before silo filling time. Methinks its not going to get done, so another year of building a pile in the middle of the silage corn field..


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

I'm sure you have a reason, but I'm kind of curious as to why you are building 2 separate bunkers 3 or 4 feet apart instead of using a single common wall between them.

Do you plan to put a bottom in them, or just go on the soil?

Dave


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

What made you decide a bunker? Seems a lot of bunkers are being abandoned in favor of silage bags these days. We did that in the mid '90;s, after a section of bunker wall caved out underneath me while packing on top of the pile. Nothing like feeling your tractor shift sideways 3 feet to really get the blood flowing. Found out most of the bolts holding that section together had corroded thru.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

If you're feeding enough cows bags are a pain in the butt, especially with all that plastic to deal with, speaking from experience here.

I'd imagine two bunkers so not so much face is exposed on one.

Packed good and tight, a good cover and using a facer can cut spoilage to almost nil.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

mlappin said:


> If you're feeding enough cows bags are a pain in the butt, especially with all that plastic to deal with, speaking from experience here.
> 
> I'd imagine two bunkers so not so much face is exposed on one.
> 
> Packed good and tight, a good cover and using a facer can cut spoilage to almost nil.


Plastic to deal with? Just do like my neighbor does. Wait till its almost dark and drag it into a pile with the skidsteer. Then light it all off. Pisses all us neighbors off. Stinks everything up


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

We had a TMR wagon, no matter how careful you were sooner or later the augers in it would get wrapped up with plastic, once they had enough wear on em the edge of the flighting was like a razor blade.

Bags are a pain in the butt, if we were to go back to milking cows we'd replace the silo's with bunkers.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Bags can be a pain to manage for some people. They are a mess if you dont have a good hard dry spot to put them. But feed quality is very remarkable coming out of a bag. We had zero spoilage in the one we filled last year. I still prefer an upright for our operation.

Nice thing about a bunk is you have a relatively mixed pile of silage. Not like a bag or upright where feed quality varies from field to field etc


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

We were milking 300 cows, tore down the old bunker and poured a bunch of concrete for pad sites, then leveled and packed additional bag sites. We filled 10' by 200' bags faster than we ever could the bunker. Zero spoilage, lab tested every bag and marked them by field identifier and cutting. We found we could fine tune rations much better with bag silage than with either the bunker or silos, and it was so much faster to fill.

We had 5 silos, 3 harvestors ( one for high moisture corn, the other 2 were converted to top unload) and 2 Hanson concrete staves. We eventually quit iusing all but the high moisture corn silo, and one of the Harvestors that we liked to fill with corn silage. It would still be very cold in the middle of summer, and cows seemed to like that.

Before Dad and Uncle retired, we were considering converting the silos to dry grain storage, since we would never go away from the bags.

The plastic was a pain to deal with, but well worth it.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I should have elaborated more, would store all of our corn silage in a bunker since that varies less from field to field and still use the uprights for hay silage. The 24x80 that held corn silage would hold a hell of a lot of hay silage.

I wouldn't go back to dairy though unless we were going to go wit the robotic milkers.


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## Bob M (Feb 11, 2012)

We put 2 center walls in with 3 foot between and are filling the 3 foot with dirt. All walls are back filled with dirt to hopefully prevent any walls from kicking out. We are putting concrete floors in both. We have used earthen trenchs at home farm for years but did not have enough slope at this farm to dig in a bank. These walls were relatively cheap $25/block or about $7,500 for all walls. We looked at the cost of bags over 5 years and thought they would be more expensive. We have used bags with varied success. When done correctly we don't get much spoilage with our bunkers. I can't say for sure about shrink. We would usually see more mold in ag bags than are bunkers. Several keys to bunkers, they must be packed and packed and packed some more, we go to great lengths to provide enough packing . Fill quickly and seal up quickly and seal them tight. Use a defacer at feed out. Back filling is done and we should be filling the one bunker on Friday.


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm with you on the robotic milkers!!


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