If you are in a farming area look into ''totes'' that farmers use for bulk seed. They can be purchased used or new and are readily available in most areas.

 

Wanda,
Yes I am in Rural NW Ohio.

I did a quick search for Totes in Farm and Garden on our local craigslist.

This came up..

Totes of hay chaff - farm & garden - by owner - sale

Large totes full of hay chaff. Excellent feed for goats, sheep, or steers. Extremely economical.

limaohio.craigslist.org

.is this what you are referring....If so those are the 275 Gallon tote containers I was considering....

Thanks
Chris

 

When I was raising baby calves, marketing them at around 500 lbs, I raised about an acre of ear corn, kept it for a year in a cheap “crib” made of plywood on a concrete slab in the barn. I’d take some to the feed store now and then, have it ground, mixed with soy bean meal and cotton seed meal, bring it home in 50 lb sacks.

 

All,
So it appears that I can store it in about anything that is reasonable. (dry and off ground)

Does anyone have any idea what one of the totes mentioned above would hold in say corn?

I believe I can load 4 of those on that ford trailer...not to mention 2 in the truck.

I have two available now.

In fact this morning I filled one with water (in the bed of truck) to help gain some traction to move my larger trailer in the barn that was over filled.

Thanks
Chris

 

Buy and old gravity wagon. Most of the big farmers have outgrown gravity wagons and don't have much use for them. See them for sale pretty cheap all the time.

 

All,
Looked out on the local craigslist for the gravity wagon approach.

There is a couple to consider under $1000. Not to mention one that is just a bed of one.

Still the totes look like a more economical option. I have an option of these sub $50 all the time around here. Some will need to be rinsed but some are food grade.

The gravity wagon, how does it work to unload. I assume it comes thru the bottom. Lets say, I need a 100 pounds of corn. What prevents it all coming down out at once. Or in simple terms what is the controlling flow mechanism in the Gravity Wagon?

I am looking at all options here. I found once in a Farm supply catalog ( I believe it was QSupply) a large container that you put in a truck or trailer that reminded me of a Small Street Salt spreader you see in back of trucks. It had a mechanism that controlled the feed amount (lever type mechanism) with a side chute. It was around $500 plus shipping and was capable of 1.25 tons.

Thanks
Chris

 

How do you plan to unload grain from the tote and maintain todent integrity?

Grain totes are a special built totr with a pretty hefty deposit attached to their use.

Gravity wagons are good but pretty much need parked under cover to keepthe grain dry

 

I am in very close to your same situation. I never feed whole corn, it's value as a feed stuff is marginal, it's a lot of carbs and not much protein. A better option is the beef commodity blend, three way, or commodity pellet. It's usually a pellet made up of soybean hulls, corn gluten, and wheat mids. Usually cheaper than corn and definitely more balanced. Way less attractive to vermin. It has a limiter, think salt and vinegar potato chips, so no one animal will eat too much. I think this is why rodents don't care for it. Hogs will eat it, they don't like it and won't do as good on it. Chickens will not eat more than a little spillage here and there. All ruminants love it.

I go to southern states coop and they load the bulk bag that is setting on a pallet right on the back of my 3/4 ton with a forklift. I get a custom grain blend for milkers from a farmer/feed dealer, he loads it the same way, and I save my commodity pellet bags for him. I pick a clear day, drive home and scoop it out with five gallon buckets and dump it in plastic barrels. I have inside plastic barrels that have plywood lids, just regular 55 gallon plastic with the top cut out. Set it on plywood, draw a circle, cut out circle and make another circle about an inch smaller and nailed all the way around, nail them together, not water proof but rodent proof. Outside I have collected plastic barrels with snap and screw lids. They have lasted for 20 years or so, but be careful when it's cold.

I have used old freezers, would not reccomend. Hard to clean if you ever need to, and my experience was that the wind would catch them and blow the lid up and blow rain inside of them, and you would need to clean them once you figured out a place to dump all the moldy grain. Believe it or not, unauthorized livestock can nudge a freezer lid open, too. The barrels will sweat, and mold a little spot right in the top, but not bad. I can store stuff six or eight months, but sometimes you will run into bugs on the long storage, depending on time of year. Sweet feed, or anything with molasses in it, will sour, ferment, and mold, and I never really thought it was good to feed animals pure sugar, you can get to enterotoxemia city really quick if for some reason something eats too much, or doesn't eat enough roughage with it. The barrels are cost effective, easy to clean, easy to keep feed fresh and rotated, mouse proof, and I like to set them by the gates of various pens, with the feed for those animals in it. I have one by the hog pen, one by the henhouse, one by the kennel and a row of them all along the barn on the yard side. Several more in the barn, so I don't have to open an outside barrel when it's pouring. I have a place for empty barrels, between the garden fence and a rock ledge, so they don't blow to the next town.

Feed is feed, but when a gate gets left open, it can be poison. Got to keep the livestock out. You need it secure from bugs, rodents, livestock, vermin, rain, and it's really better if it's not in direct sun, or air, you will lose nutrients to oxidization (cracked corn is good feed, but you might as well feed cardboard if it's not fresh.)


Barrels, freezers if they are inside a building with a closable door. Feed sacks if it's in a building with closable door, and it's commodity pellets that the rats won't run away with. A mini silo if you buy enough to get a grain truck to deliver it that has a grain blower. The 275 bulk water tanks look like a good way to ruin a bunch of feed when your rigged up lid leaks or blows off, and don't look like they would be much fun to get feed out of when they are 1/4 full. You can tip a fifty five gallon feed barrel over when it's a quarter full, when they get to where I can lift them put the lid on and start feeding out of a new one until I can dump the old one. Life is too short to spend any time hangingover the edge of something with your eyes bulging out breathing grain dust.

 

The price for the bulk tote is less than the cost for the paper bags, because I can buy it cheaper than the same weight in 50 pound bags. I usually get around 1200 or 1400 pounds, they sell them anywhere from 800 to around 1800 pounds in the commodity pellets. Building supply companies use essentially the same tote to deliver sand or gravel to jobsites. I think one of the first ones I did I thought I would be cute and use the front end loader and use the little spout with the drawstring that's on the bottom. Unless you have a container that can hold all that feed in about 4 seconds, do not touch that bottom spout. But when I did cow calf with 60 head of cows I would set them in a cattle trailer with the front end loader that was parked in a shed. I was feeding one a week from about january to march.

 

You can get corn dumped straight into a pickup bed and shovel it out into barrels, sacks, or whatever. Grain scoops had a use before they were snow shovels.

 

Up here we use seed totes. They are not the totes you are thinking, they are giant bags that have loops on the top you use to lift them with forks. They work great. Especially if you have a front end loader.

 

All,
Unfortunately no front loader. I have been looking into one of those as well. I was hoping by spring but not sure with Covid-19/availability. I have rented them a time a two and they will be on the farm a few times this spring if I do not buy one as I have a large ongoing concrete project. Weather closed in before I could get the first third poured this year. The Concrete delivery folks were booked 3 weeks in advance. My next closest bulk concrete went to commercial accounts only.

I am thinking to secure the feed the following;

The bulk of it will be on the trailer. The trailer has 16.5 tires and decent suspension its off the ground quiet a bit (2 foot plus). I believe this thing could handle way more than a ton. My old GMC truck (1/2 ton) may be the limitation for things but I have hauled by trailer more then 2 ton with that old truck.

The trailer\grain will be stored indoors. With the additional land purchase this fall I got a decent pole barn that came with it. So animal barn only has animal and animal needs in it now.

Reading some of the ideas mentioned. I could use the large totes (I mentioned previously)and slice the lids off horizontally. Use 1X4 and screw/bolt them to the lid to make a lip all the way around. Probably put a handle on it as well. I could seal them with plastic wrap as I have a tool that my late father used in his flooring business but honestly a ton will be gone in three months tops and the height will help keep some varmints at bay. If ventilation is needed these totes have large screw on lids I could create a vent as well. Seems like moisture could be more of a problem.

Then take a couple 55 gallons drums with metal strap lids for each animal area. Cracked corn according to a few online sources weigh approximately 400 pounds for a 55 gallon drum. I have appliance moving carts if It gets to be to much weight. Not to mention I control the weight based on how much I scope from the large tote to drum. Not to mention 55 gallon size for a drum is not written in granite. 40 Gallon drums are around 300 pounds full. I can move (push around) 300 pounds all day myself.

Looking at the ratio of weight 55 gallons = ~400 lbs.... a 275 Gallon Tote should hold a ton. If someone can confirm that would be great but I would be surprise if 2 totes would not do my needs.

As far as feed type. Corn is used in a majority of the animals. So I was thinking it would be my first bulk order. Sweet feed and "Steer" feed would be my next consideration. The bag price from grain elevator for Steer feed compared to TSC or other local supply store was less than half the cost. The pig feed was amazing difference and also a consideration but I do not want to get a head of myself.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Chris

 

Looking at the ratio of weight 55 gallons = ~400 lbs.... a 275 Gallon Tote should hold a ton. If someone can confirm that would be great but I would be surprise if 2 totes would not do my needs.

A bu of corn weighs ~56lb and has a volume of 8 gallons, so a 55 gal drum would hold 385lb.

A 6' x 4' PU bed is ~1.3 cu yds, so it would hold ~1580 lb of corn.

 

In our part of the north bush, we use old chest freezers.. We got 3 old chest freezers from when a subsidized housing community replaced appliances..

The compressors were out of the freezers making them much lighter.. They were clean and rodent tight.. We have them in buildings and filled with rabbit pellets and hen layer mash.. They are much easier to reach the bottom than barrels, hold enough to make it worth buying feed by a pallet load of 50 bags.. A pallet or tote bag load discount is well worth the work of filling the freezers..

They are tight enough and in buildings to not be an attractant for bears.. That can be a problem here..

 

Would do chest freezers before 275 gallon water containers. Those things are pretty tall. Think scooping the last bit out. I would do freezers now, if I had the indoor space to burn. When I used them before, one was in a shed with an unlevel floor, and the lid whacked me when I scooped out the bottom. The outside one, under a roof overhang, would blow open if you didn't put enough rocks on it, or got opened by wayward cows.

 

I would use a freezer if I had the indoor space to burn..
=== ===
Actually.... I thought that if I had too, I would use a chest freezer outside, on a couple pallets, with a ratchet strap around it.. Hook the strap to its self and the freezer would be secure, and yet accesable..

Until the lumber prices went crazy.. Along with that the price of shipping containers went sky high also.. I have consitered a 10 or 20 foot container to store feed.. This letting me buy in discounted quantityies.. And giving a foundation to add a lean too on either side..

A lot of this depending on the discount for purchasing feed a pallet at a time and such..

 

All,
Thanks for the help!

I have some ideas on how to do storage and pick up.

I will make the arrangements and we will see where that leaves me.

Again thanks,
Chris