how can we empty silos that empty from the bottom?

[dunroven]

We need a way to empty these silos more efficiently, especially now that it is cold. A friend has given us literally about 8 tons of corn fines, stuff that is really just cracked corn and that's about it, but we have been feeding it to our pigs and chickens, ducks, and other birds. Cuts down on the cost of feed and everyone seems happy.

Anyway, the silos are about 6 inches off the ground, so we have been taking old feed sacks and filling them up as far as we can, shut the slip plate and then do it again. We gather up as many sacks as we can on the pickup and then dump them into garbage cans, etc here and old freezers to store away from the mice and rats.

My question is though, how can we do this without just having to be on the ground in such cold weather for so many hours at a time. This much corn is going to take several days to get, at 40 pound sacks, which is what we have. We need a vacuum of some time that we can just put in the containers and then unload the containers here.

Is this possible? Take a shop vac and somehow rig up the nozzle to fit on the slip plate of the silo. Put the lid of the shop vac on the cans, turn it on and off when the cans are full instead of on the top of the actual shop vac itself? Any other suggestions would be much appreciated!

[rambler]

'Here' a silo is concrete or glassed metal structure that holds silage - ground up whole corn plant that makes it's own pickle juice......

I will guess that you have about 300 bushels of corn fines/ cracks in a metal grain bin (corigated glavinised metal)?

Oh, oh, I get it - these are old feed bins, with the cone shaped bottom. You slide the plate & grain falls down. I think I know what you have now - not a silo or grain bin, but a feed bin with a cone bottom.

The problem is that they are only 6 inches off the ground. That is pretty tight!

Does your friend or someone else you know have a small portable auger? Little 4 inch or 5 inch auger, 10 - 20 feet long. Runs on a 1/2 to 1 hp electric motor. You can cut up a plastic pail, tub, or some such into a hopper at the bottom, stick the auger in, and auger 30 bu or so into your pickup at a time. This is _the_ way to deal with this.

A couple of my shop vacs will clamp directly onto a 5 gallon pail - but this is 600 pails of grain, that would be a _lot_ of dust to run through a shop vac! I'd not want to do that.

Can you dig down another 2 feet to get a pail under there, just drop into pails directly?

Neighbor has one with a short horizontal auger bolted on the bottom, with a crank on the end - can auger out the grain by turning the auger crank - with a pail under the end of that auger.

--->Paul

[Jim Bunton]

Most of the farmers in my area use an auger. Place it under the door and it augers the grain up into a wagon. Maybe you can rent one or better yet borrow one.

Jim

[dunroven]

The "bin" is on a concrete block, so no chance of digging down below it. Also, no auger to borrow and no money to buy one. Actually though, if we did that, we would only be saving a very small step, cause then it would have to be shoveled again and put in bags to move somewhere else after we got home with it, because, we have to put it in garbage cans and old freezers. We don't have big storage for this.

We call all of these up here silos, so that's why I used that term, but I can switch to bins. No problem there.

I kind of was doubtful on the shop vac but hey, figured it was worth the try, you know, poor man's auger! LOLOL

I just think this is really going to be cold. We are supposed to get high winds and a snow tonight, so it will be pretty bad to lay on the ground for that many hours to do it, although I will cause I need the food and the only charge we have for it besides getting it, is I share eggs with these folks and they provide the "scratch". All in all, not a bad deal.

[April]

Is there any place lower anywhere you could put the containers then use a tarp to slide the corn down?

That may be a really stupid idea, but I had no idea what you guys were talking about so I spent several fascinating moments figuring out how the heck you all were using a post hole digger to move grain.

[clovis]

So this is a gravity fed bin, where the cone is on the bottom, with a slip door where the corn pours thru????

Or is the door on the side of the bin?

If you weren't there to take the corn, how would the owners empty it?

Any chance you could hire someone to pull the corn from the bin, and haul it to your house?

Clove

[big rockpile]

I don't think a Shop Vac will hold up.We used a Vaculator to move Grain but it is very Big and will move it just about as fast as it would hit the ground.

I would say you can only do one of two things.Shovel or Auger.

big rockpile

[Windy in Kansas]

Generally farmers fill buckets from the slide gates of cone bottomed feed bins or use a portable grain auger to load it in bulk. Iowa seems different, I've never heard them called silos either. We all learn from the forums.

You could lay a tarp under the bin and build up under three sides of it with posts, blocks, or whatever in order to form a sort of shallow bin to scoop from. Yes, scoop. Scoop it out and into a pickup or whatever and fill your containers when you get home.

Nothing wrong with good old fashioned work, especially for something that is free. At least you aren't in a large diameter bin filled with dust and scooping from all directions to the door to empty it. Been there, done that after a bottom auger slide door failed to open.

[haypoint]

Rather than sit on the ground as the corn pours into bags, I'd lay out a cheap plastic tarp under the sliding door and let it flow. Not very much would pour out until the pile met the door and the flow would stop. Then take a big wide aluminum shovel and scoop it up. Around here they call them grain shovels or grain scoop. At this time of year you may see a similar shovel of plastic for shoveling snow. Shoveling the bag full would keep you off the ground.
In some areas you can buy plastic or metal barrels real cheap, cheaper than garbage cans. I'd get 6 or 8 barrels, the kind with locking lids, set them in the back of the truck. Shovel the corn fines into 5 gal plastic buckets (available for free at bakeries or Subway), then pour it into the barrels. Once your barrels are full, lock the lids onto the barrels and go home. Tip the barrels over, roll out of the truck and roll to where you need it. In the locked lid barrels, they'll stay dry and rodent-free.
If this source isn't available next year, you can still use the barrels. At harvest time, the value of corn drops to its lowest level. Contact a corn farmer and buy as much corn as you can safely store.

[palani]

Not a suggestion other than using a shovel and bushel basket. Dump into an old flare wagon.

I would suggest moving that stuff out pretty fast though. Corn is wet this year and the fines will turn moldy and lodge in the bin pretty fast if left too long. Then you will really have a problem getting it out in addition to poor feed quality.

[Witterbound]

How did your friend who owns the bins or silos plan to empty them before he gave them to you? Surely he didn't do it one bag at a time crawling on his belly? Couldn't you just leave the bottom open and let the corn fall on the ground, then shovel it out toward the outside and scoop it up with your shovels or even better a front end loader of a tractor. Sure, you're gonna leave some corn on the ground, but it's going to be much quicker to get it moved.

[fantasymaker]

Skip the sack step and just use a grain scoop to shovel it into the back of your truck then take it home and shovel it out into your containers there. You should be able to scoop a PU full in a few minutes.
Can you leave it in the bin and just use it as you need it?


By the way a "silo" is designed to hold "Silage" and belive it or not some of those unload from the bottom.Funny how the meaning of a word changes the term "missle silo" alwaqys brings some weird pictures to my minds eye.

[watcher]

This popped into my mine. If you are handy and can find a high volume 'squirrel cage' fan you can make a huge vacuum to move the grain. Make a cover for your can (or even your truck bed). Then you can either put the fan on the cover and run a large sized pipe (foam core PVC sewer pipe will work) as a pick up. Or you can run a second pipe from the cover to the fan.

A second option is to make a blower. You rig it so the grain falls into the air stream. Take a pipe attached to the fan to make what is basically a huge leaf blower, then cut a slot in the pipe for the grain to fall into. A little harder because the air will try to blow out the slot and the grain will shoot all over the place so you'll need a large target to catch it.

[longrider]

[QUOTE= We need a vacuum of some time that we can just put in the containers and then unload the containers here.

Is this possible? Take a shop vac and somehow rig up the nozzle to fit on the slip plate of the silo. Put the lid of the shop vac on the cans, turn it on and off when the cans are full instead of on the top of the actual shop vac itself? Any other suggestions would be much appreciated![/QUOte]

Try something like:
http://www.keeneeng.com/Merchant2/me...tegory_Code=DW

I am sure you could build one yourself. Of course a hole auger rigged on the back of a tractor but laid horizontaly might work too. It would have to be laid in a large "rain gutter" to gravity feed the auger which would pour out into the sacks. just a thought, carney

[dunroven]

Okay folks here's the thing.

Equipment we have to work with:

A pickup, about 200 feed sacks, the bin which the opening is about 6 inches off the ground and all the corn plus a couple of shovels.

We have no augers or wagons or anything like that.

It has been snowing here today, and the wind is extremely high. We are down to about 20 degrees. The slip plates on these bins is about 6 inches from the ground.

In order to get the corn in the bags and not blown all over creation, you have to hold the bag right over the hole, which means laying down on your back while holding your arms up and over to the side. Then as the bag fills, someone has to be kneeling beside you to pull the bottom of the sack out so the bag can fill completely. Then you have to reach up and close the slip plate, move the filled bag, and then do the whole thing all over again.

If you let it fall out onto the ground and scoop it, the wind would blow it so much that you would be trying to work in a dust storm and by the time you got a pickup load home, you would have lost about 1/4 or more of it.

We need a vacuum situation or something on that order. Doesn't sound like there is anything though.

Also, no, we have a limited time to get the stuff out before the guy gets more feed.

What did he do with it before? There was another couple that got it and did it the same way. Its very labor intense. Hard work here is not the issue, because we have done this all of last spring, actually starting in February of last year, up until now, but laying on an icy cold ground in that position for that many hours in a day is not just hard work, its kind of dangerous, at least I think.

We need the feed, but not pneumonia to get it.

Any other suggestions?

[Beaners]

Would the corn keep flowing if you rigged up a pipe to funnel it from the opening to at least a couple feet away? I'm thinking of the same stuff that you use to vent a dryer. Maybe that way you wouldn't have to be directly on the ground the entire time.

I'm not sure if the corn would keep flowing while you did that though. I'm picturing something that would fit over the opening, and instead of the corn emptying underneath it would empty a few feet over into your sacks. Just an idea.

Kayleigh

[fishhead]

Can you park vehicles and erect a windbreak? I would do that first.

Then I would try to rig up some new stove pipe (left open) or sheet metal/cardboard/plywood to the opening. Corn slides pretty easily and you could pull it with a kitchen broom.

[dunroven]

Kayleigh

I just had asked my husband that same thing just before I looked at your post!

I think this might be a good solution. We just have to rig up a way to connect the mouth of the pipe to the bin opening and then someone could stand there and hold the pipe while someone else held the bag. Tip up the tube and the flow "should" stop. And, if the tube got too full, you should be able to just jiggle it a bit to get it started again. I think it would work really well, other than it might need to have something to rest the tube on as it could be too heavy for dryer vent coil. Now, what about the dryer vent coil linked to some 4 inch or 6 inch, whatever PVC pipe? It could be duct taped to the PVC pipe and then you could even put a cap on it if you wanted?

What do you think?

[fishhead]

If you must lie on the ground put down 3-4" of cardboard or some styrofoam covered with plywood to keep it from breaking into little pieces. Cardboard has about the same R-value as fiberglass. I lie on it to change my oil in the winter.

[wy_white_wolf]

Place a little kids plastic swimming pool under the grain chute to catch the corn. Line your pickup bed with a plastic tarp. Shovel away. 2 people switching off can have a pickup bed loaded in under 30 minutes.