Where would a person find a grain silo?

yeah . . . that sounds expensive. Nevermind

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"What if I fall?" "Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?"

We always rolled our HMC going into a 16x65. Corn silage went in bunkers, hay went as balage.
Got an 18x60 on a farm I bought that I want down, second row of blocks from the bottom is cracked all the way around and I don't trust it.

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The internet - fueling paranoia and misinformation since 1873.

probably be cheaper to find somebody who could tell you how to reinforce it and keep it up.

Nah I don't use it and there's nothing much around it. Gonna hook a couple of good long chains on a couple of rings and give it a yank and see what happens.

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When I was a kid we would take them down almost like cutting a tree. Notch out the way you want it to fall and then start taking out the other side.

Yeah I've seen it done by shooting out blocks with a .303 but I have an excavator coming for a few other jobs anyway.

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If your just looking for looks, then make a wood frame and wrap with steel sheeting, and put a top on it, most sheet tin roofing is in 36" inches wide, and even it the sections were straight, in a hexagon and octagon or even more, in not that much of a distance it will look round,

one could make a frame by rolling some thin square tube in to rings, and welding it in to a frame, and then putting the steel sheets on it, with self drilling screws.

Well Sammy, Wisc is where silos took off, so it is right that there is where they would end up, being used.

Plenty of silos still being used around here .

Yeah, I wonder why in the north/new England, Mich/Wisc, there still being used, but not out here. I can find a tree growing in at least 3 of them.

My uncle had a well. Went dry so he filled it in a bit and used it for a silo. Hadnt been used in years by the time I saw it. Dad had a trench silo. Only used it one year.

His silo was the only one around, far as I knew for round 5 miles sq, until the 70s when a neighbor put in a couple harvestore silos.

Bet the neighbor isn't using his big blue, expensive Harvestore Silos any more.

Nope, bout a year after he had them up, he suffered a stroke, lived around 5uyrs and died. His boy had a turn key operation, and he couldn't handle it. He nearly lost everything before he tried to take hold again. I think they were down to around 80 acres, using old machinery that he would buy and get my bro to work on.

I think the reason they never c aught on here in NE Okla, is ranchers rent pastures that may be miles away from them. Its hard to haul haylage in any amount miles away. Big bales solved that problem. BUT I think they had quit using them before the big bailers had come in. Square bales was just so much easier to deal with.

He put them up in the late 70s. They were still there around 5yrs ago. I remember bro saying he had tried to sell them, but nobody wanted them.

I can't recall the details, but somehow the air tight Harvestors created some type of natural toxin. So everyone stopped storing silage in them. It has been years and years since I've seen one used. A few concrete stave silos still being used.

Just costs too much to take down and rebuild. A few central Michigan Amish do it.

Those Harvestores are baked glass on steel, porcelain. Getting all the bolts out of them and brought down without ruining the coating would be hard.

They look just like a harvestore, actually are a harvestore since that's just a brand. One dairy farmer around here has one, I wouldn't have ever known it was for grain till dad told me. Put corn in @22% moisture (I think you can go up to 30%), he just aimed for low20's, and it won't spoil so you can feed high moisture corn.

I think you would best off to simply build a round building about the height of your Barn. It would look about right. and be simple to build.
Silos by definition hold silage, that's fermented plant material usually chopped corn plants or hay.. They built up a LOT of pressure so they were VERY strongly built, Those that ensiled Grain had to be even more robustly built.

But for what you want standard home construction would do. Traditionally two types of roofs have been used, the angled type like a grain bin is one, You could get one of these from a grain bin company. Or the half sphere type. Im not sure where you would get one of those but If you go that way Id be tempted to make the top floor a planetarium with a telescope and star charts.

Perhaps a round wire corn crib would look somewhat right and they can be bought pretty cheaply, the right types can be taken apart easily and put back together in sections. Just saw a couple sell last week for $30 or so, for scrap iron is all really.

Just looking for an affordable option?

Paul

Getcha 3 of those cheap wire cribs. Fasten them together, and stand them up in place. They should be easy to bolt planks together against the wire mesh. Use a double row of 1in by 12in boards. 1/2 lap them, and take cable and round it with the cable, mayby every 3ft or 5. Use turn buckles to tighten the cable.

Id like some of those corn cribs!
Great pens. good for fence panels and as a last resort you can always store corn in them!