Old farming men.

DeeGee

Member
Location
North East Wales
Silade was different to other acids and was actually formaldehyde. A known carcinogen. A local farm, if not a few local farms one year, suffered the loss of many cows due to being poisoned by Silade in well preserved silage.
It didn't aid fermentation like other additives, it actually stopped fermentation. Its the same stuff used to pickle body parts in labs.
The same stuff you use in cow footbaths, well diluted.

Think that was in the mid seventies if I recall correctly?
 

micthwic

Member
I remember they were flogging battery acid (sulphuric) for silage about this time.Thats what knocked off a few cows.
I took a bath in formic acid when transfering an almost empty drum and the carrying cradle fell off the chopper. Was on my back on the deck with the bloody stuff just pouring on my crutch. Jumped in a water trough but still rough for several months,; quack looked up formic acid and said "oh thats one of the worst for burns". Tell me about it..
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
Most of that stuff would not have been fishmeal at all but meat and bone meal. The stuff they rendered at specialist factories and with a changed process, caused untold losses in the form of mad cow disease.
Provimi 66 was pure white fish meal we used for high yielders. Can you not still get it . Meat and Bone we used to collect direct from the knackers yard .backed under the bin and filled 45 gallon drums with the tops cut off
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
Provimi 66 was pure white fish meal we used for high yielders. Can you not still get it . Meat and Bone we used to collect direct from the knackers yard .backed under the bin and filled 45 gallon drums with the tops cut off
Dad tipped it in the yard and we used it instead of sand for building sand castles. Tasted quite nice as well
 

trook135

Member
Location
Hampshire
Always remember grandad telling me about when we got the first tractor in the area, no dealers/ fitters in the area so head tractor driver at the time was sent to the factory to learn how to build and repair it, any parts that needed replacing he learnt how to manufacture them on the lathe. I’m sure there were many other tales to be told, however my grandad had dementia and died when I was young
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Always remember grandad telling me about when we got the first tractor in the area, no dealers/ fitters in the area so head tractor driver at the time was sent to the factory to learn how to build and repair it, any parts that needed replacing he learnt how to manufacture them on the lathe. I’m sure there were many other tales to be told, however my grandad had dementia and died when I was young
Probably eaten too much meat and bone meal. Seriously! I remember my grandfather and the old boys back then eating the odd bit of Ashworths cow cake. They had no idea what was in it or whether conditions were sanitary.
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
Grandpa will be 86 in a couple months. He's got a variety of stories. Chinese putting in the rail roads. When he worked at a coal mine. Moving a house by pulling it behind teams of horses. The original house him and my Grandma lived in with my aunt and mom is still at the farm, although last time I seen it it only had three walls and half a roof. It's about the size of an old grain bin.
 

2wheels

Member
Location
aberdeenshire
Always remember grandad telling me about when we got the first tractor in the area, no dealers/ fitters in the area so head tractor driver at the time was sent to the factory to learn how to build and repair it, any parts that needed replacing he learnt how to manufacture them on the lathe. I’m sure there were many other tales to be told, however my grandad had dementia and died when I was young
my father was in oz in the late 20s early 30s. the farmer he worked for made the crankshaft and big end shells for the old tractors when they got worn. these were oliver and hart parr tractors. length of furrow when ploughing was a mile and got stories of ploughing through rabbit warrens and dingos chasing tractor.
 
After thinking about Silade, I suddenly remembered the Propcorn applicator in the barn that added it to the grain going up the pipe. I think it was propionic acid and it also wasn't very nice stuff either. c1984
edited to add I see you can still get it so maybe shouldn't be here. I just remember it being a nasty job when the pipes blocked.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
After thinking about Silade, I suddenly remembered the Propcorn applicator in the barn that added it to the grain going up the pipe. I think it was propionic acid and it also wasn't very nice stuff either. c1984
edited to add I see you can still get it so maybe shouldn't be here. I just remember it being a nasty job when the pipes blocked.
Yes, propionic acid [hellish stinky stuff] is still used.
As is formalin as a feed additive, though not as a silage additive as far as I know. I believe it is used to treat soya to increase rumen-undegradeable protein percentage and generally worldwide in feed mills and for pig and poultry meal in particular, as an anti-bacterial, especially where salmonella is a potential issue. I may be wrong though and have no more recent experience than from when I used a BP Nutrition product back in the 1980's, called Sopralin. I think BPN was sold off way back then to become Trouw Nutrition from whom I bought minerals and probably Sopralin at some point, probably through Midland Shire Farmers.
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
20180101_190653.jpg


Dad Ploughing 1965 .he bought the Dexta New around 1960
That field had been 8ft high in Gorse so using a single furrow plough to get through the roots
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
I think I've mentioned it on here before, but i remember 1984 as the year of the great Silade strike, which was like the miners' strike on a slightly smaller scale. the foreman was the local union rep and he took exception to having to drive his 7710 on the silage chopper with a silade feed and no special protection.
All the drivers went out on strike so the gaffer made me drive the chopper as I was only a student and could be got rid of if I complained. Had I been a bit older, I would have been more principled and walked out too, but luckily the others didn't hold it against me and just saw it as another example of management oppression. I
Most of those additives were totally unnecessary
 
Just found a picture of great grandad from around 1949 with a Saddleback sow. thought it was worth sharing. He was the one who used to sell patent medicines around the shows. His farm cottage in the New Forest is now lived in by none other than TV celebrity Chris Packham! :whistle: Edited to add : Apparantly Mr Packham lives near Southampton now, so my info was out of date!
img666084.jpg
 
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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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