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Mini Harvestore Silo Stands 15 Ft. High
"Everyone who sees it says it's the cutest thing they've ever seen. I'm happy with how it turned out," says Nathan Braunschweig, Lomira, Wis., about the miniature sealed silo he made out of 3 used Harvestore silo panels.
  He uses the mini silo to store feed for the 150 chickens he keeps on his farm. The 3 Harvestore panels measured 5 ft. high and were 9 ft. long before they were rolled into shape.
  The structure stands 15 ft. high and is just 36 in. in dia. It weighs about 1,500 lbs. and sets on a 4-ft. sq., 10-in. thick concrete pad next to his chicken coop. The silo holds about 2 tons of cracked corn or oats. Braunschweig runs the grain through his home-built feed mill previously featured in FARM SHOW (Vol. 34, No. 3).
  The silo is fitted with its own filling system, which includes a pipe and a homemade, gooseneck-shaped filler tube on top. It has a V-shaped floor with an auger underneath that delivers feed into a large rubber dish, which serves as a feed tray for the chickens.
  "It's just a smaller version of the bigger Harvestore silos that stand on our farm. I fill it exactly like you'd fill a regular Harvestore," says Braunschweig. "I use a built-in blower on my feed mill to deliver feed up the filling pipe on the outside of the silo. It works so well that I plan to build another one just like it. "
  Braunschweig got the used Harvestore silo panels, and silo bolts, from a silo dealer he used to work for. The company supplies new and used parts for Harvestore silos and unloaders, and also tears down old silos and rebuilds them for sale.
  "The panels had been removed from the top of a silo and could no longer be used for silage because acid had pitted the panels' glass lining, which would let in oxygen and spoil the feed," says Braunschweig. "However, I knew the condition of the glass lining wouldn't matter for grain so I asked if I could have them. I had a local fabrication shop roll the panels end to end, and then bolted them together."
  One problem is that feed sometimes tends to plug up in the floor's opening. "My feed mill is designed to turn the grain into a powder, so when I blow ground oats into the silo it really packs down and can hang up. I plan to replace the V-shaped floor with a flat floor and build a miniature unloading auger like the ones that Harvestore uses," says Braunschweig.
  He used 3/16-in. thick steel to build the cone-shaped roof and cut a hatch into it. "The roof is the same thickness as the Harvestore panels, so this silo will be around for a long time," he notes.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Nathan Braunschweig, W183 Super Drive, Lomira, Wis. 53048 (ph 920 904-0993).


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2011 - Volume #35, Issue #2