Feeding from the 'wrong end' of a silage pit....

[early riser]

My wholecrop pit is open at both ends and has approx 2% slope on it.

Due to building delays i may be forced to feed from the opposite end as usual i.e. working downhill rather than against the slope, so obviously when it rains heavily rainwater will run back against the silage face rather than away from it.

Any water that collects there will obv have to either soak through bottom of the wholecrop or evaporate off.

So basically can i just expect an inch or two of soggy wholecrop at the base or will the waste be likely to move upwards through clamp at a greater rate??

Not an ideal situation but the alternative is either driving over fresh concrete or not opening the wholecrop pit for ages (cows need it now!!)

 

[upnortheast]

Not ideal but sometimes you have to do things.
Any chance of putting sandbags ( or something ) across the front when heavy rain forecast

 

[Grassman247]

Box scraper to remove rainwater possible at all?

 

[early riser]

Box scraper to remove rainwater possible at all?

Yes ive got a 7ft 6" megascrape which would move water fast.

Av rainfall here only approx 750mm and pit is only 30ft wide so not expecting large lakes of water to gather. More a question of whether the seepage/wastage would be limited to just the bottom inch or so of the pit.

 

[O'Reilly]

Yes ive got a 7ft 6" megascrape which would move water fast.

Av rainfall here only approx 750mm and pit is only 30ft wide so not expecting large lakes of water to gather. More a question of whether the seepage/wastage would be limited to just the bottom inch or so of the pit.

In my experience it doesn't work upwards

 

[davidroberts30]

Yes ive got a 7ft 6" megascrape which would move water fast.

Av rainfall here only approx 750mm and pit is only 30ft wide so not expecting large lakes of water to gather. More a question of whether the seepage/wastage would be limited to just the bottom inch or so of the pit.

I would say it will affect about 5 to 6 inches

 

[kill]

Do you put some wavy perferated drainage pipe under your silage to run effluent out as that would probably pull water away quickly enough. Sand bags and drill through a wall to let it go maybes and mastic or fill with cement again afterwards? Or just sand bags tight to silage and scrap any pooled water away.
I personally would think letting water into your silage won't be very good for it.

 

[Treemover]

Could you build up the floor with sandand put a sheet over it; then as it falls off the pit face it still has gravity or height to throw it away from your whole crop; but you’d need lower ground than the base of your pit.

 

[yin ewe]

You would only need to stay off the fresh concrete for a week or so, even if it meant putting some sand on it to save the top, could you not cut out enough blocks of wholecrop to keep you going until you can drive on the concrete. Probably get some spoilage in the blocks and at the face near the end of the week, but perhaps less waste overall and less hassle than the alternative.

 

[bigw]

We have done it in the past and although its not ideal it doesn't seem to be too bad. On really wet days we would scrape away the water.

 

[Nearly]

it will be fine.

 

[early riser]

Spoken like a true suckler cow farmer

 

[mixed farm]

It's worrying about nothing, happens here with grass silage, as long as the face is kept clean it will be minimal. Sure it rains on grass before they eat it and no one dies ?‍

 

[Moorlands]

You must have eventually won your battle with planning for your new dairy shed then?

 

[early riser]

You must have eventually won your battle with planning for your new dairy shed then?

Different project

 

[Ballygreenan]

This might sound awkward, but is it possible to use a narrow strip down along one side of the pit along the wall first, thus leaving a kind of drainage channel to divert rainwater along. I don't know if this is suitable without knowing the width of the pit?

 

[Nearly]

Spoken like a true suckler cow farmer

I used to be cow squeezer you know.

 

[Yale]

Have you a mixer wagon?

If the water is clean and not too much a couple of bags of sugar beet pellets would soak up a bit then could be fed out.