A good friend(Steve) of my middle son(John) was seriously hurt falling down his silo yesterday. Steve went to all 12 years of school with John. They are god parents to each others kids. Steve's father passed away about 8-10 years ago. He had always farmed with his father. His mother remarried and made Steve buy the home farm at full market price just three years ago. So money is real tight for him.
He is a real hard working young man. He just turned 34 back in December. He is married and has three children. They are about he same age as some of my grand kids. I think the youngest is 4 and the other two are 8 and 10.
He feeds cattle and farms about 1000 acres of row crops. He does not have much in the way of equipment. He just filled his yards right before Thanksgiving. He has right at 500 six weight cattle. He feeds them with a Schuller wagon(just a chain feed wagon. Kind of like a manure spreader but the chain pulls the feed to a cross auger). He has a 70 foot tall upright silo that he has corn silage in. He grinds corn and puts it into a gravity wagon. So as he fills the Schuller with corn silage he fills five gallon buckets with corn and throws it in with the silage as it fills the Schuller wagon. Then he throws ground hay on the top after he has the corn and silage that he wants in the wagon. He has to make ten loads to feed all the calves. It takes him 6-8 hours to get all his feeding chores done.
His old up right silo is shot. The blocks are bad around the bottom because of the silage acid eating at them and the old Clay unloader it over fifty years old. You can not get parts for it any longer either.
Yesterday morning the unloader broke an auger and fed it to the blower. It scraped the whole thing. He came in an told his wife at about 7:30 am he was going to be working up in the silo on the unloader. She sent the oldest kid out at 11:30 am to get him for lunch. She found him laying on the ground at the bottom of the silo chute. They called the rescue squad. They got him stable and air flighted him straight to Iowa City to the University hospital. His wife (Carol) called my Son and DIL to watch the kids and the farm while she went to the hospital.
My son called me at 12:30 PM to come over to see how I thought we could get the cattle feed. My son started to climb the silo and I stopped him. I knew Steve had trouble last year with it, the doors being rotten on the silo. The hardware would pull the bolts through the old wood. It does not have the swing away doors so the hardware is just bolted to the wooden doors So when they pulled through the step/lock falls down the chute. Plus you loose a step on that door. I told him I did not want him to take a chance on being hurt. So I went home and got my fall protection harness. I went up the chute. I would climb two doors and then tie off at another silo loop. At about forty feet I found a bucket of tools hanging on the door there. The step was gone on the step a door below that. So it looks like he was hanging the tool bucket up and the step below him broke. So he fell down the chute about 35 feet. He real lucky he is still alive.
When I got up to the unloader I found out it was not repairable. It had broken the auger an that fed into the blower ruining the blower and blower housing. None of the parts are available. So getting it to work again was not going to happen.
So I told my son (John) to go to my place and fill my TMR wagon with a feed ration. I called my oldest son Robert and told him to take the TMR wagon from the lower place to my place and do the same thing. We made a ration that was real heavy in hay as I have no idea what type of ration he had been feeding. I sure did not want to founder his calves with a hotter ration.
So they did that an we got the cattle feed around 2:00 PM. The calves where really raising cain by then. They where hungry.
Carol called us about then with the news on how bad Steve was hurt. He broke his left leg in two places the doctors where not sure they could save that leg as he had lain on it folded under him for several hours. ( We found his watch under some feed. It was broken and had stopped at 8:15 am. So it looks like he laid there for maybe three hours) His right leg is broken in one place. His left arm is broke. His collar bone is broke. His right shoulder was dislocated. He also has a concussion. He did wake up during the flight down to Iowa City. He did talk to them a little so they think he does not have a serious head injury. So he is in for a long recovery. They do have health insurance. That is a small help.
John told her that we would take care of the livestock until Steve is able to. I agree with that.
So with that in mind we set about getting things setup to feed things in a more timely/modern manner. Steve had talked about this being the last year for the upright silo, He does have an old open fronted slant floored hog barn. It would make a commodity shed with the out side walls removed so you could have room to fill a feeder wagon out in front.
So my brother brought over his JD track hoe. He and my sons started to get the walls torn out. I called and arranged for a load of wet gluten feed. Steve would have been real close on having enough corn to finish this group of steers. I am switching his ration around a little adding the wet feed to stretch his corn and silage. I called the guy that does my tub grinding an explained the problem we had. He came right over. The boys had the one wall out by then. So he was able to grind one bay full of hay. My youngest son had gotten Steve's grinder/mixer out and was grinding corn to put in one of the other bins. So we have one for corn silage , one gulten feed, one for hay and one for corn silage. That will work well.
I went an got my backup TMR wagon and got it hooked up to one of Steve's tractors. I also had been working on a deal for an additional skid steer loader for us. I called and had the dealer just deliver it to Steve's. We needed some way to load the feed wagon and to bed the cattle. Got a nice JD 332D with a full cab with heat/AC. It is just a year old with about 400 hours on it.
About that time Steve's Amish neighbor came over to see if he could help any. I outlined the issues we had. He said he and his sons would see about getting the corn silage out of the upright. They got the old unloader raised. He then got his boys and they started to hand throw the silage down the chute. My one son would haul it to the old hog shed with the skid steer. They moved about five tons. That should last for 4-5 days. The Amish fellow said he and his sons would keep doing that until the silo was empty. Say what you want but they are good people. Steve and them have been good neighbors for years.
So about this time I took the belt trailer to go get the wet gluten feed. ADM had a line as they where making feed real slow. So I did not get home until after 1:00 am. So I spent New Years waiting in the feed line.
So Steve and Carol's kids stayed at my son John's house last night. Susie, John's wife, took some cloths and the kids down to Iowa City this morning. That way Carol could have things to change into and the kids could see their Dad for a short time. Susie called us a few minutes ago. Steve is awake for short periods today. The doctors are more favorable about his left leg. They told Carol that the cold actually helped Steve with the leg. The recovery could take up to a year.
So it looks like we have some additional chores for awhile but a good friend looks like he will recover. So this New Years is not starting out real well. Hope yours went better.
He is a real hard working young man. He just turned 34 back in December. He is married and has three children. They are about he same age as some of my grand kids. I think the youngest is 4 and the other two are 8 and 10.
He feeds cattle and farms about 1000 acres of row crops. He does not have much in the way of equipment. He just filled his yards right before Thanksgiving. He has right at 500 six weight cattle. He feeds them with a Schuller wagon(just a chain feed wagon. Kind of like a manure spreader but the chain pulls the feed to a cross auger). He has a 70 foot tall upright silo that he has corn silage in. He grinds corn and puts it into a gravity wagon. So as he fills the Schuller with corn silage he fills five gallon buckets with corn and throws it in with the silage as it fills the Schuller wagon. Then he throws ground hay on the top after he has the corn and silage that he wants in the wagon. He has to make ten loads to feed all the calves. It takes him 6-8 hours to get all his feeding chores done.
His old up right silo is shot. The blocks are bad around the bottom because of the silage acid eating at them and the old Clay unloader it over fifty years old. You can not get parts for it any longer either.
Yesterday morning the unloader broke an auger and fed it to the blower. It scraped the whole thing. He came in an told his wife at about 7:30 am he was going to be working up in the silo on the unloader. She sent the oldest kid out at 11:30 am to get him for lunch. She found him laying on the ground at the bottom of the silo chute. They called the rescue squad. They got him stable and air flighted him straight to Iowa City to the University hospital. His wife (Carol) called my Son and DIL to watch the kids and the farm while she went to the hospital.
My son called me at 12:30 PM to come over to see how I thought we could get the cattle feed. My son started to climb the silo and I stopped him. I knew Steve had trouble last year with it, the doors being rotten on the silo. The hardware would pull the bolts through the old wood. It does not have the swing away doors so the hardware is just bolted to the wooden doors So when they pulled through the step/lock falls down the chute. Plus you loose a step on that door. I told him I did not want him to take a chance on being hurt. So I went home and got my fall protection harness. I went up the chute. I would climb two doors and then tie off at another silo loop. At about forty feet I found a bucket of tools hanging on the door there. The step was gone on the step a door below that. So it looks like he was hanging the tool bucket up and the step below him broke. So he fell down the chute about 35 feet. He real lucky he is still alive.
When I got up to the unloader I found out it was not repairable. It had broken the auger an that fed into the blower ruining the blower and blower housing. None of the parts are available. So getting it to work again was not going to happen.
So I told my son (John) to go to my place and fill my TMR wagon with a feed ration. I called my oldest son Robert and told him to take the TMR wagon from the lower place to my place and do the same thing. We made a ration that was real heavy in hay as I have no idea what type of ration he had been feeding. I sure did not want to founder his calves with a hotter ration.
So they did that an we got the cattle feed around 2:00 PM. The calves where really raising cain by then. They where hungry.
Carol called us about then with the news on how bad Steve was hurt. He broke his left leg in two places the doctors where not sure they could save that leg as he had lain on it folded under him for several hours. ( We found his watch under some feed. It was broken and had stopped at 8:15 am. So it looks like he laid there for maybe three hours) His right leg is broken in one place. His left arm is broke. His collar bone is broke. His right shoulder was dislocated. He also has a concussion. He did wake up during the flight down to Iowa City. He did talk to them a little so they think he does not have a serious head injury. So he is in for a long recovery. They do have health insurance. That is a small help.
John told her that we would take care of the livestock until Steve is able to. I agree with that.
So with that in mind we set about getting things setup to feed things in a more timely/modern manner. Steve had talked about this being the last year for the upright silo, He does have an old open fronted slant floored hog barn. It would make a commodity shed with the out side walls removed so you could have room to fill a feeder wagon out in front.
So my brother brought over his JD track hoe. He and my sons started to get the walls torn out. I called and arranged for a load of wet gluten feed. Steve would have been real close on having enough corn to finish this group of steers. I am switching his ration around a little adding the wet feed to stretch his corn and silage. I called the guy that does my tub grinding an explained the problem we had. He came right over. The boys had the one wall out by then. So he was able to grind one bay full of hay. My youngest son had gotten Steve's grinder/mixer out and was grinding corn to put in one of the other bins. So we have one for corn silage , one gulten feed, one for hay and one for corn silage. That will work well.
I went an got my backup TMR wagon and got it hooked up to one of Steve's tractors. I also had been working on a deal for an additional skid steer loader for us. I called and had the dealer just deliver it to Steve's. We needed some way to load the feed wagon and to bed the cattle. Got a nice JD 332D with a full cab with heat/AC. It is just a year old with about 400 hours on it.
About that time Steve's Amish neighbor came over to see if he could help any. I outlined the issues we had. He said he and his sons would see about getting the corn silage out of the upright. They got the old unloader raised. He then got his boys and they started to hand throw the silage down the chute. My one son would haul it to the old hog shed with the skid steer. They moved about five tons. That should last for 4-5 days. The Amish fellow said he and his sons would keep doing that until the silo was empty. Say what you want but they are good people. Steve and them have been good neighbors for years.
So about this time I took the belt trailer to go get the wet gluten feed. ADM had a line as they where making feed real slow. So I did not get home until after 1:00 am. So I spent New Years waiting in the feed line.
So Steve and Carol's kids stayed at my son John's house last night. Susie, John's wife, took some cloths and the kids down to Iowa City this morning. That way Carol could have things to change into and the kids could see their Dad for a short time. Susie called us a few minutes ago. Steve is awake for short periods today. The doctors are more favorable about his left leg. They told Carol that the cold actually helped Steve with the leg. The recovery could take up to a year.
So it looks like we have some additional chores for awhile but a good friend looks like he will recover. So this New Years is not starting out real well. Hope yours went better.
