As most of you will already know we raise our pigs here on the farm as naturally as possible. However, they still need some supplemental feed to keep them healthy and growing during winter and during things such as the drought we had this year. For the past year or two we have been getting a grain based supplement in bags. However, over the course of this past summer the rodents and birds discovered this fact and have been getting into the feed. So the decision was made that we needed a feed bin to store the feed for the pigs.
I prepped a site and formed it for concrete and a few weeks back the neighbor got concrete delivered for some areas in his barn and had enough left over to put a pad in for a feed bin. It had a bit too much calcium in it and set up way to fast to finish nicely but it has a rustic look that kind of matches the old barn so we are just gonna run with it! I need to make the step a little bit bigger but all in all it is almost perfect for size.
I took a week of vacation around thanksgiving to get it set up. I traded the neighbor some of the baling work I have done for him for his old feed bin that he is was not using any longer. I got it down and moved here and ready to repair and set up by the weekend following thanksgiving. However, the parts needed to finish the repair did not arrive till after my vacation was over. So I had to finish the repair and install after they arrived at the end of the week.
We had to assemble the parts inside the bin because after they were assembled they would not fit through the hole in the bottom. To be able to install the new bottom in the bin my wife and I had to stand it up on the pad and stand inside of the base to put it all together. Below is a pic (albeit a bad one) of my wife crawling down and out of the bin to allow me to get in to drill the new holes needed to complete the repair and installation.
Here is a pic of it completed and filled with feed. I could have shortened the auger but I decided not to as it was much easier to add a drop pipe to the end of it to get the feed into a bucket. Before the bin I had to get one ton of feed at a time. This fed all of the feeder pigs, sows, and the boar for about three weeks. I had to have it bagged and I would drive 35 minutes to pick it up and then hand carry into the barn and stack in the mall where the mice and rats and birds would proceed to rip open the bags and spread the feed everywhere while eating it! Now I can get about 2.5 tons of feed at one time. This is enough to feed all the pigs for about two months. It is protected from rodents, dry, and delivered for me for less than what it cost to have it bagged, let alone the travel costs to pick it up!
I wired everything myself including a weatherproof switch that is wired up and mounted to the leg of the feed bin. It is so nice to just flip a switch and fill a bucket vs. carrying bags and having to deal with all the empty bags that I am not allowed to reuse. I am now also able to weigh all the feed out to be sure I am not over feeding or underfeeding or wasting feed!
I wanted to add a little note about bedding. I recently baled a bunch of corn stubble for bedding the barn for me and several of the neighbors. Even though it is a little more difficult to spread I think it works better than straw. This is due to the bulky dry stems being able to soak up lots of moisture and they bind everything together better. I usually put a bale into the cow shed and spread it out enough that it isn't in a huge pile and the pigs and cows do the rest of the work for me. The cows nibble at the stubble and play in it and the pigs root all through it looking for treats. There is a surprising amount of ear corn loss when harvesting the corn. When we rake the corn stubble the lost ears usually get raked up with it and end up in the bales. It gives the pigs extra motivation to spread it all out!!
Here on the farm I am trying to introduce more organic matter to the soil to make up for what has been lost over the last century of conventional farming. The previous owner rented it out to someone who didn't care for the soil as well as he could and continually rotated back and forth from corn and beans with no cover crop in between. The soils here were very poor when we moved in and I have spent the last seven years trying to make them better.
Using corn stubble helps me do this! When the stubble soaks up the moisture and bonds all the manure together it is capturing all the nutrients I need to put back on the fields. Furthermore, the bacteria in the manure immediately start breaking down the corn stubble into nutrients that the plants in the field can draw up through their roots and grow on! If left out on the field the corn stubble will take a year or two to break down. When I use as bedding and spread on the field during the winter it is completely broken down in the field by spring.
Due to the extremely wet year we had last year I wasn't able to spread manure like I did the year before and I could tell a huge difference between the areas that had manure and those that didn't when harvesting this year. As soon as I finished my final cutting this year I cleaned all the barns and also spread the pile of manure I have had composting in the pasture for two years. I still have the manure in the pit I made during the wettest part of last winter. I cannot get it out without the use of an excavator. I will work on that issue the next time dad or I rents one for some project around the farm. I am sure that it will be soon and I am anxious to get it out as there is enough manure in that pit to cover one of my smaller fields really well!
I hope everyone is ready for the holidays! We just got a Christmas tree yesterday and my kids and wife decorated it last night. I haven't decided if we are going to do any lights outside yet as we have not gotten any yet to do so. We are also getting ready for the arrival of new piglets starting at the end of the month as well as our annual herd check and vaccinations!
Have a great day everyone!
Kenny
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