I'd like to buy a small feed silo

[RedneckPete]

I’m thinking of buying or building a small grain silo for my animal food. Between the goats, chickens and pigs, the bagged food option is getting a little expensive.

I’d like to buy one of the round stationary ones, but pretty small. I’m thinking about 4 feet diameter and 8 or 10 feet tall. I'll pick up the food in my dump truck and shovel it into the top of the silo. I'll get a generic grain mix, maybe with some minerals and a touch of molasses. All the animals have access to hay and pasture, so a balanced diet shouldn’t be a problem.

My problem is this. I can’t seem to find any even close to this small. The smallest I found was 12 feet in diameter, WAY bigger then my needs. Someone must make these things does anyone know where I can get one? My other option is an old grain wagon, but they are usually way bigger then I need, and more expensive because of the portable aspect of them. Besides that, having one sitting around with the rest of the farm and business related junk tend to make the place look a bit messy.

Any ideas?

Pete

[Rockin'B]

That's a lot of shoveling. If you are in farm country, look for a small auger to upload it with. They go for pretty reasonable here.

[Windy in Kansas]

Six foot and other diameter models from this company.
http://www.grainsystems.com/gsi/engl...ght/spcbft.htm

Just a reminder that it isn't fun shoveling grain over your head.

How about getting a short section of a large diameter drainage culvert and adding your own ends. A concrete floor and a removable top.

Hey, a well pit should work in place of the aforementioned culvert. Just mount it above ground instead of in the ground.

Hm, still no mode of access to either.

If you can find an old combine bin and mount it on legs they work great.

[DaleK]

Just get a steel or plastic feed bin, you should be able to find one that size through any farm dealer in Ontario or a used one locally for a few hundred dollars. Just look for any dairy barn that isn't being used for milking anymore and chances are there'll be one around you can buy. Our small one is about that size and holds 4 tons, most people put them on a cement pad but I put ours on two 5" steel pipes for skids so I can move it. Your feed dealer should be able to deliver with a blower truck and blow it in. Keep the ingredients dry, any molasses or other wet ingredients in it and it'll be moldy in a hurry.

[DaleK]

http://www.prairie-pride.com/bins.html

These are some of the plastic ones, you can get these new through Weagant's in Eastern Ontario and other dealers or used from different places. The steel ones look very similar.

[uncle Will in In.]

An old round steel hog feeder would work fine for what you need. Many of them would hold about a ton of ground feed. They were about 6 feet in diameter and six feet tall. They had tapered in sides near the bottom. These were on most of the farms in the corn belt a few years ago. Check out any hog or former hog farms to see if you can find one. $5 would be about all they are worth. Most would have the bottom rusted out, but you could put a plywood bottom with an unloading spout on one side. They have a round steel lid on them. My son got a couple to hold his shelled corn for his corn stove.

[fantasymaker]

what uncle will said!

I did that I put mine on an old fuel tank stand and put a wood disc in the bootom of the feeder where the cone would normally be.On an older feeder these will have rusted loose and be the reason the bin is $5 .
The I took a wide board and put a bolt thru it and the frame of the stand for a piviot point . I used tha board moved right and left for a valve. Id throw a bucket under it swing it right till the grain filled the bucket and then move it left to shut off the flow. In your case you might be able to use the feeder as originally intended with no modification just by limiting accecss time or really closeing it down.

you can by two and take the "rings " off the second and bolt to the first to enlarge it.

[Stephen in SOKY]

That hog feeder recycle idea is great. Thank you both very much.

[DaleK]

Hog feeders would be a good idea if you were in the Midwest, but almost impossible to find in Ontario. They just weren't used here very much. I've been around hogs and people who raised hogs all my life and I've never seen one bigger than about 200lbs of feed except in pictures from the US

[sammyd]

you don't want a silo, you want a bin.

[Jennifer L.]

You can always build a wooden feed room/bin inside your barn. Most older stanchion barns would have had inside bins like that.

Jennifer

[fordson major]

one of our feed tanks is a used service station gas tank, they come in many sizes. you could also get a culvert and make a top and cone for it. lot of tanks now at dairy farms like dale was saying, in need of repair they are often free!

[fantasymaker]

If ya cant find any in ontario drop by I have a couple Ill give ya.

[Jillis]

Use an old chest freezer. I had friends who took old, usually broken chest freezers and put them in their barn to store grain. Another plus was they did a real good job of keeping the rodents out of the grain!

[artificer]

If you really want a cone bottom bin, try an industrial tank. Expensive, but readily available.

Here's a link to one at US Plastics.

Michael

[pasotami]

Pete - unless you use dry molasses, the wet will gum up inside the cone over time and you will have to clean it out some how. I have a 3 ton creep feeder, the lid opens easily and you can use a large scoop to get the feed out of the feed bin on the side. It has wheels and you can move it any where you want. Put a road grade tire on them and you can go get your own feed without having to shovel it into the bin.
Also I have no idea where you are at, but bulk sweet feed in the south can go bad if in a hopper with the heat, in the winter here the sweet feed gets so hard you can move it.... You may want to swap from molasses to an oil of some type to kill the dust if you are having your grains cracked or ground. Works just as well and the fat adds great stuff to your feed without adding sugar.