Sealing silage pit

Muckit

Sealing silage pit today (between running in out of the showers :rolleyes:) Fit for nothing now:o

Every lad you talk to has their own way of doing it! So....

• How any covers do ya use? how many old? New? What order do you put them on?
• Do you use sand bags to seal against concrete? Anything handier than having to double bag them every year (fert bags)?
• What tyres do you use? car /lorry/tractor?

s-cogan

two layers of new visqueen plastic, sealed with gravel filled sausage bags at the edges, (concrete walls), mostly car, van, 4x4 tyres, with 2 rows of supersingle truck tyres at the front.

moy83

One new roll of plastic first then two older ones on top of that nearly all truck tyres we put the tyres standing on edge along the walls . alot easier than forking dung on top like the good ole days

Agri contractor

The best I have seen is a few lads are using a clear film of plastic a bit like clig film on the pit and one sheet of visqueen plasit I have seen no waste on any pits. The clear film of plastic clings to the pit.

funny man

last year i covered the pit without tyres, one sheet of heavy polythene and a green net cover on top, weighted down with 1meter bags filled with stone. opened the pit and covered the pit twice last year to put more grass in. Geat system!

49801

am a big believer in draping the 1st layer of plastic over the wall as the first few loads come in. no problem getting a good seal at the wall and zero waste then!!!

always a bit of waste on the shoulder where there is no wall though

little bit of forward planning to unroll the sheet on a field and roll in back up but the reduction in waste makes life during the winter so much more pleasant an well worth it.

pit always covered with car tyres. hard to beat them for a good seal but what a pain handling them.
side walls of truck tyres are suppose to be very good.

Muckit

s-cogan wrote: »

gravel filled sausage bags at the edges

Are they like the 'zill' bags ? Where did you get them? Are they a good job?

Muckit

funny man wrote: »

lone sheet of heavy polythene and a green net cover on top, weighted down with 1meter bags filled with stone.

How did you keep the net up off the polyethene ?

Upstream

Muckit wrote: »

Are they like the 'zill' bags ? Where did you get them? Are they a good job?

We used these last year around the walls, very little waste. Give a more airtight seal around the edges than tyres, and they're a lot cleaner than bags of dung
Used them again this year.
Think we got them in the local co-op. A simple idea and they work well.

Some pictures from the net.

Muckit

Upstream wrote: »

Give a more airtight seal around the edges than tyres, and they're a lot cleaner than bags of dung

I'd say they're a great job alright. We put a few sovels of builders sand in double bagged fert bags. Great seal, but they burst sometimes or the frost makes a feck of them and we've to slip them into another bag the following year. Pain in the h*le, but cheap as chips and a great way of using up old fert bags

s-cogan

Originally posted by Muckit
Are they like the 'zill' bags ? Where did you get them? Are they a good job?

Tis the cousin has these, he's had them since before I started working for him, you'd see them in the DairyGold brochure every now and then.
Pain in the arse filling them, but a good job on the pit.

Their supposed to be better with proper Silage Mats, heavy mats that use these to seal along the seams. Looks a right job, less handling

STIG83

Hope ye dont mind me posting in here, what my brother and father does to cover the pit is they open the plastic in a field (2 covers) lay on top of one
another and roll it up.

Then the contractor's loader brings it up on the pit, pull down the plastic at the back of the pit, seal with tyres, start to roll open the cover down to the front in stages, the contractor's loader brings up a load of tyres on the buckrake and dumps on the plastic, lay them out and roll open back plastic again.

Been doing it this way for a good few years, did it last week and had some of the silage men to help us as they werent busy, had it done in no time

Muckit

That's a great idea STIG I don't know if our contractor would help out though, but I'm definitely going to ask next year You don't ask, you don't get

STIG83

Muckit wrote: »

That's a great idea STIG I don't know if our contractor would help out though, but I'm definitely going to ask next year You don't ask, you don't get

We are lucky cos he has two Volvo L70Es on the pit, so one usually stays back to help but last week was so handy, started covering the pit at 7pm and was finished before 8, many hands make light work!!

Dupont

the man i help uses a new cover and a old one or two on top,use 6" blocks along the walls,gives a great seal along edge and when stripping pit stacks them on top of wall and car tyres tight to each other on the cover

s-cogan

STIG83 wrote: »

Hope ye dont mind me posting in here, what my brother and father does to cover the pit is they open the plastic in a field (2 covers) lay on top of one
another and roll it up.

Then the contractor's loader brings it up on the pit, pull down the plastic at the back of the pit, seal with tyres, start to roll open the cover down to the front in stages, the contractor's loader brings up a load of tyres on the buckrake and dumps on the plastic, lay them out and roll open back plastic again.

Been doing it this way for a good few years, did it last week and had some of the silage men to help us as they werent busy, had it done in no time

we roll it out on the pit, then roll it back up the pit and the contractors loader will fire up tyres while we unroll it back down, then we spread out the tyres at our ease

Muckit

Getting some good stuff on this thread

On the subject of walls, are they a good job as opposed to just slab on it's own?
Seen a lad near us had a walled slab, but when he was redoing it last year, he ripped it up and he opted for just the slab. Often wondered how you get the grab nearest the wall out without loosing some?

STIG83

s-cogan wrote: »

we roll it out on the pit, then roll it back up the pit and the contractors loader will fire up tyres while we unroll it back down, then we spread out the tyres at our ease

Would it not be easier to roll down instead of up?

funny man

Muckit wrote: »

How did you keep the net up off the polyethene ?

No i lay the polythene first and then put the net cover on top of it, then walk around the walls putting down the bags, just a matter of going around the walls a few more times as the pit settles tightening down the cover.

Muckit

funny man wrote: »

No i lay the polythene first and then put the net cover on top of it, then walk around the walls putting down the bags

So the net is directly on top of the polythene? No space between them?

funny man

Muckit wrote: »

So the net is directly on top of the polythene? No space between them?

yes this is key as this keeps the polythene tight to the silage, last year was my first year using it, but so impressed with no waste i'll never go back to tyres again, stripping the pit in the winter when feeding is a pleasure, you could do it in your good clothes.

MfMan

Muckit wrote: »

Getting some good stuff on this thread

On the subject of walls, are they a good job as opposed to just slab on it's own?
Seen a lad near us had a walled slab, but when he was redoing it last year, he ripped it up and he opted for just the slab. Often wondered how you get the grab nearest the wall out without loosing some?

Probably a good job for the pit man putting it up for safety reasons. My pit has a wall, which is a bit tricky to seal fully. Usually put on a couple of rows of sandbags to weigh it down. They're a bitch though when the frost cracks them and they split. I can't get fully in to the wall with the shear grab but there's usually only a sliver left anyway, which can be forked onto the bench.

I put on 4 covers of polythene last year and hadn't a lot of waste, just a small bit near the walls and on the top towards the finish. Crop went in very dry which may have helped. Cover the lot with car tyres, as thick as I can fit them. Very labour intensive I know. I was thinking about the cling film cover; can this be reused for several years?