Homestead Grain Storage Shed

[59 Sons]

"The augers would be easier to deal with than a fancy crane setup, although if you have the grain in super sized bags, you will have to figure out how to dump into the auger. Thus a small bulk trailer would be nice. I'm just thinking of many uses for my trailer fertilizer spreader. Add a dumping method, and it could easily be made into a 1-2 ton grain hauling trailer, if I needed that. Potentially it could be configured for multi-use (fertilizer, grain, etc)."

I apreciate the idea, I was just going to lift the palet with the FEL forks up to the back edge of the shed an slit the bag. If the low end of the roof is 8 foot or less, I should be able to do it, the Kuby can lift 10 feet, although I may have to partialy unload the bag if its too heavy. Ill have to check my specs.

Please forgive my spelling, I was up all night watchmaning a project site, and I am rum dumb.

 

[aczlan]

I apreciate the idea, I was just going to lift the palet with the FEL forks up to the back edge of the shed an slit the bag. If the low end of the roof is 8 foot or less, I should be able to do it, the Kuby can lift 10 feet, although I may have to partialy unload the bag if its too heavy. Ill have to check my specs.

What if you had a "door" into each bin on the outside (properly sealed of course) and got a grain cart such as Case feed wagon or a auger/elevator (such as Seed Auger For Sale or 30' Grain elevator) and a gravity wagon (such as For Sale: Green Gravity Wagon) to haul down to the elevator, fill with grain and unload into your bins?

Would probably be easier than trying to tilt the roof, lift a sack of grain into the air and slice it open so it empties without dumping all over the ground.
Edit: There are also gravity wagons with augers mounted on them such as this one: http://www.beavervalleysupply.com/sectiona/westfgw.htm

Aaron Z

 

[powerpace]

I apreciate the idea, I was just going to lift the palet with the FEL forks up to the back edge of the shed an slit the bag. If the low end of the roof is 8 foot or less, I should be able to do it, the Kuby can lift 10 feet, although I may have to partialy unload the bag if its too heavy. Ill have to check my specs.

Please forgive my spelling, I was up all night watchmaning a project site, and I am rum dumb.

Lifting the bag by the straps requires more than 10 feet to get it over the edge. If it is on a pallet that still will be difficult.

 

[dave1949]

Okay, now I see where you are coming from. I think it is an admirable goal to cut the feed truck out of the equation, smart in the long run. And, the sooner the grain is used after grinding, the better the nutrition--so they say about home baking at least.

I can understand wanting to buy at harvest to get the best price. That savings will be offset by the cost your storage--including what it takes to keep the grain in good condition. That is what you are rightly focusing on.

The ideas will keep coming.

 

[CliffordK]

That's quite a few chickens. Are they in a coop, or free range?
Pigs, just feeders, or breeding?

We probably had 20 or so free range chickens.
With the dust from the hammermill, and some spillage, there was enough grain around that we never fed the chickens, just let them fend for themselves, at least for the laying hens and their chicks. We may have bought feed for at least the younger meat chicks that we purchased.

Anyway, for the livestock, I would probably do wheat OR barley, not both. Add corn if you wish. Pigs still should have some protein supplement. Is that what the peas and lentils are? Anyway, you will need a lot less of your protein supplement depending on the concentration.

Any thoughts about biodiesel? You can press the oil out of some seeds (soy, sunflowers, etc), and the presscake left over is high in protein, and can be used as a protein supplement.

Things may have changed a bit... One can't feed meat meal to cattle, and perhaps sheep and goats. However, I believe it can still be fed to pigs. The cheapest we got was going to the local rendering plant and buying 55 gal barrels of "tankage". And oily, goopy tank residue that one would scoop out with a shovel.

Do your grain mixes list all the components by percentage? Can you get that? It would certainly give you a good starting point.

No matter what you do, you'll still need to process your grains somehow. And likely in bulk. I'd plan on storage capacities for processed grains so that you will fire up your mill once a month or so. Can you feed all the animals the same food mix? Or, perhaps a base grain plus supplement?

I think when we did ours, we just ground straight wheat or barley, whatever we had as 90% of the feed, then added supplements when we fed it of whatever we were using at the time.

Your whole grains should store fine for animal feed without a lot of additional work.

 

[forgeblast]

I did a quick search for 1 ton grain storage.
Storage Solutions for Wood Pellets | MY WOOD PELLET SOLUTION shows a pellet stove solution.
Tucker & Sons - Give Us A Call To Get Prices On Your Next Feed Bin Or Custom Product. Office 918-788-3714DJ Cell 918-533-3540 Doyle Cell 918-533-7819 not sure if its something you can integrate into the building.
Dayspringfarm | 1.5 ton grain trailer this was interesting it is on wheels.

 

[CliffordK]

If you had a good bin type trailer and adequate space, perhaps you could just pull the whole trailer into the barn and park it, and then just use the grain out of the trailer, at least for your primary grain. You might want to block the wheels.

 

[59 Sons]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I have seen the bulk grain storage units at the breweries I service, and the dedicated trailer with an auger is awesom! However, the size of my operation does not justify the cost of those fine ideas. The over riding principle of this plan is to keep the cost at rock bottom, so make do with the equipment I have, even if it means I have to shovel it in, although I dont think it will come to that.

So mabe I am making the moisture issue worse by sealing every thing tightly? I think I will do as recomended, and keep a barrel each of the Human food seperate, treating it special, and then see if I have any mold problems in the animal grain. I think I will still purge the bulk bins with gas regularly, and keep a de-humidifyer in the shed. If in practice ,I find I have overcome the moisture issue, then I might dispense with the seperate food barrels in the future. I understand that wheat can keep 25-30 years if treated properly, I am only aiming for 3-5 years max.

I have not finalized the actual recipies of the various animal feeds, which I of course will do before actual construction. Right now I an just trying to nail down all the physical factors that will effect the design.

Also, I have made arangements with one of my customers, a produce market, and I bring home 3 barrels of produce cuttings a week, and I have over 100 resturant customers to pick from that I could collect scraps from. I figured if I needed something more high protein, I could probably locate it for free. All of these low cost, high labor sources of feed will hopfully make this operation cost efective.

I will mill the lumber for the shed myself. I still have to buy defect plywood, craigslist roofing, and weld the hardware. The steel exterior door will come from the Rebuilding Center, and the FRP is left over from an insurance claim (another story). Perhaps you are getting the sense of my financial goals

Thank you all for the responses, I really do appreciate them.

 

[dave1949]

Since you weld, I bet you could scrounge the parts for a bin trailer.

 

[aczlan]

Since you weld, I bet you could scrounge the parts for a bin trailer.

I see them going for $300-$500 around here this time of year and an elevator like the one I linked is ~$300ish if you watch CL...

Aaron Z