On several of the farms I have permission to trap I help out with crop harvest when needed. Here are some pictures of the first corn silage being harvested.

Fields are wet so running dump box's to either the pile or to semi's


Packer tractor


Waiting at pile to open a field next to it


Opening round so keeping it close


My mug shot


Anyone else spend some time working on the farms you trap?

Dave

neat pics,thanx for sharing.

Cutting third crop alfalfa here..silage in a couple of weeks

Silage done here about 3 weeks ago. Guys shelling corn now.

At least they use green equipment.

Looks like fun. Nice equipment. Most stuff around here is about two years newer than Amish junk.

Work cattle, drive truck here it's always a fun time it goes a long ways with the landowners plus they get free eggs when I have them to hand out. Here they run trucks for silage it's like NASCAR day with them coming a going until it's done.

Looks like fun. I'm glad to see the sun shining.

Silage chopping is done here, now onto cutting high moisture corn.

Thats a funny looking cart, it looks like a trash dumpster. never seen such a thing........

Whoa , is this a corporate farm? Millions of dollars of equipment.....sure makes it easier for sure, i remember using corn knife opening up outside rows so the corn binder could get started and then throwing binder twined bundles up on wagon and then throwing bundles into silo blower....it was work. Doubt these new young farmers could hack it....

We dont have to hack it, not with 250 hp under the hood. We have electricity now too, and toilets that flush with a flick of the handle. No more crapping out behind the barn.

I help out on weekends. just don't take many pictures, this is cho
pping bedding hay in july.

Silage done about a month ago. Start picking dry corn maybe tomorrow.

I help out where I can, doing hay, plowing, disking and planting. Some corn chopping too, on occasion. I'm working in an apple orchard right now, driving tractor and doing a few other things, but this is a paid gig. Already have permission to hunt and trap and I told them if they ever need anything, I'm a phone call away.

Some more pictures from Friday and Saturday's harvest. A little over 10,000 ton harvested in 5 days with one chopper.

Dave

Had two coyotes trotting and watching on fence line of this field the farm rents.




Most nights chopped until 9:30 or 10 and then had tractor maintenance, refueling and box greasing to do before heading home.

they are dying for our fields to dry up for a second here but 1-3 forcast for today from the hurricane.mold and animal damage is killing the farmers here i've talked to in the last 2 weeks while scouting.

Many farmers here plant several longer day maturity types to spread the harvest out a bit but with our very warm summer even with later planting most of the corn is ready at the same time which makes harvest a real issue. Most farms around here use custom harvest providers that come in with the equipment and labor. Some of the largest own their own and some of the middle sized do a couple farms to help spread the cost of the equipment over more acres or tons. Dave drives the equipment to help out. When I was establishing my permissions and the farmers were smaller I did a lot of relief milking to help out.

Just to give one an idea, a 10 row chopper head, chopper, hay head, a merger for hay, a couple haybines and 4-5 trucks and packing tractors is a couple million dollars and much of that money is borrowed money and those pieces are expensive to operate and keep running as well.

Bryce

I like that dump box.





We're starting to harvest wet corn for feedlot use here today.

Last year, the one feedlot bought 12 million bushels from the area farmers.

One of the guys in the office told me they set a new record that fall, by unloading 468 thousand bushels in one day.

They have three unloading bays, and a couple guys at each bay to open your hoppers. They open at 6 am, and run till 7pm. The corn comes off the belts into big piles, and gets fed through the crusher/grinder and then the scrapers stack it on the pile.

Now that's a pile of grain! LOL

It is one of three the custom harvester has. Coming into fall they had one and picked up two more with the wet weather in the area. We only had one on-site and used it on a few spots that the semi's couldn't get thru. Mostly it was a fill-in to keep the chopper rolling on fields further (4+ miles) out. I know each day calls were coming into get the dump box to one of the other farms but our chopper operator and the farm were having none of that.

Thanks for sharing pictures of the wet corn. Looks like some massive piles!

Dave