Self feed wire

jimmer · Sep 25, 2020

Last year I used metal barriers on self feed face, they worked OK, but too much wastage on the floor
I want to use electric wire this year
I have two pits side by side with 12ft concrete walls, can I have others successful methods for wire placement and tightening please
I'm guessing some kind of metal bracket that will slide along wall and run down the wall either side to attach wire onto is required
Pics would be great
Cheers Jim

Farmer Keith · Sep 25, 2020

I have a document somewhere with the correct distances to set the fence etc, I’ll see if I can did it out.

jimmer · Sep 25, 2020

My idea

Farmer Keith · Sep 25, 2020

Sharpy · Sep 25, 2020

jimmer said:
Last year I used metal barriers on self feed face, they worked OK, but too much wastage on the floor
I want to use electric wire this year
I have two pits side by side with 12ft concrete walls, can I have others successful methods for wire placement and tightening please
I'm guessing some kind of metal bracket that will slide along wall and run down the wall either side to attach wire onto is required
Pics would be great
Cheers Jim

Place I worked on years ago did self feed silage, the barriers were solid underneath the bottom rail to prevent waste, silage above cow height was loadered down, worked fine.
Previous to the barriers an electric wire was used, a wooden fencing stake was driven in horizontally on each side at the desired height, tight to the wall and the wire stretched between them, running on the lower power setting. They went to the barriers for 2 reasons, firstly some cows disliked the wire and did not feed properly, secondly the silage wasted was too much.

Cows 'n grass · Sep 25, 2020

I use a clipex post either end hammered into the face. I works well and so long as you keep hitting them it, you can keep a polywire really tight off them.

jimmer · Sep 25, 2020

Sharpy said:
Place I worked on years ago did self feed silage, the barriers were solid underneath the bottom rail to prevent waste, silage above cow height was loadered down, worked fine.
Previous to the barriers an electric wire was used, a wooden fencing stake was driven in horizontally on each side at the desired height, tight to the wall and the wire stretched between them, running on the lower power setting. They went to the barriers for 2 reasons, firstly some cows disliked the wire and did not feed properly, secondly the silage wasted was too much.

Reading the pdf above I think the wire distance from face is the critical bit
With my barriers, if they were too close the waste was more

jimmer · Sep 25, 2020

Cows 'n grass said:
I use a clipex post either end hammered into the face. I works well and so long as you keep hitting them it, you can keep a polywire really tight off them.

Clipex is my new best friend, now I might love it more

Kiwi Pete · Sep 25, 2020

We never had ours very tight Jimmer, we used shortish (2 foot 6??) fibreglass rods driven into the face of the silage clamp and just rolled the wire around the end rods a few times to tension it.
Main thing that gave us grief was the guys who made the silage built it a bit too high, and occasionally the cows would undermine it too much and it would come down on the wire.

Hence, not attaching it too well, at least we could pull the wire out if it did get buried. We got them to not chop it super fine and only had a bit of work with a fork occasionally, pull some down and keep it tidy, and drive the rods in daily with a sorta slide-hammer I made for the purpose

jimmer · Sep 25, 2020

My pits are only 30ft wide each, the silage is 12ft high and the top will be grabbed down into feeders daily

sidjon · Sep 25, 2020

Just hooks over the wall.

Blue. · Sep 25, 2020

Had hooks over the wall but a concrete block on each weighted them.

Happy hillbily · Sep 25, 2020

jimmer said:
Last year I used metal barriers on self feed face, they worked OK, but too much wastage on the floor
I want to use electric wire this year
I have two pits side by side with 12ft concrete walls, can I have others successful methods for wire placement and tightening please
I'm guessing some kind of metal bracket that will slide along wall and run down the wall either side to attach wire onto is required
Pics would be great
Cheers Jim

Did self feed here years ago, 8ft shuttered walls. First brackets were simple brackets made out of angle iron (black pic), but when a face collapse buried the wire it bent the brackets out of shape. Then got some made out of 50mm box with some struts which were much stronger (red pic) . They had small eye bolts every 4" down the leg to hold the wire at different heights. Baker twine was the method of holding the wire in place. I'm sure the brackets are still here somewhere, not sure where though.
Sorry for the crap drawing never was any good with art

Beef farmer · Sep 26, 2020

The wire is attached to the back wall and the ibc at the front with 7 points in-between held up to hight by wire attached to the top of the wall. In the winter use wire with an insulator each end and just slide back as you wish.

neilo · Sep 26, 2020

We used to have a row of sleepers across the width of the pit, to reduce waste from being pulled under foot, joined together in 18" sections of old RSJ. On each end, the section of RSJ had a bit of angle iron welded on vertically with holes drilled in it. Hooks made of a bent 6" nail fitted into the hole at whatever height you wanted, with polywire attached with baler twine (insulate & tension in one go). Overhead live wire with a dropper down to the feed fence.

Effective, cheap and cheerful and was in use for many decades and over a lot wider pits than 30'.

jimmer · Sep 26, 2020

Beef farmer said:
The wire is attached to the back wall and the ibc at the front with 7 points in-between held up to hight by wire attached to the top of the wall. In the winter use wire with an insulator each end and just slide back as you wish. View attachment 909880

Shame there's silage 12ft high in there already

Courier · Sep 26, 2020

Always use a spring of some type so that you can tread the wire down to the ground without upsetting the arrangement...

Before the days of polywire and bungy we used a MF loader bucket return spring with 2.5mm galv (mild) fencing wire.

We simply had an inverted "U" ended bracket with 1 long leg at each end and a porcelain "egg" insulator to slide over the wall top and a "Flying lead" down from a live wire from the mains powered fencer unit running under the rafters.

Sid · Sep 26, 2020

Dad made hook overs out of 4x2, always have one made up spare. Just slip over the concrete panels.
Large bolt through bottom of the 4 thickness to hold together.
Isolation switch to make removing wire easy, wire rope is multi strand. Hooks onto roofing hook through the bottom of long 4x2

No welding required, if silage falls on it or cow get hooked on it, wood breaks. Simple to mend.

early riser · Sep 26, 2020

jimmer said:
My pits are only 30ft wide each, the silage is 12ft high and the top will be grabbed down into feeders daily

If you’re pits are only 30ft wide and you’re already grabbing down the top why not just put a few more feeders out and grab the lot down?

Better intakes, less waste, no worrying about cows breaking through wire. Surely not take much more time grabbing out whilst you’re already there?

Not wishing to criticise, just interested to know what works for you

Beef farmer · Sep 26, 2020

early riser said:
If you’re pits are only 30ft wide and you’re already grabbing down the top why not just put a few more feeders out and grab the lot down?

Better intakes, less waste, no worrying about cows breaking through wire. Surely not take much more time grabbing out whilst you’re already there?

Not wishing to criticise, just interested to know what works for you

Agree 100% apart from less waste

Self feed wire

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