Vertical and Horizontal Designs of Feed Storage Silos Never Get Old

Last updated on August 29, 2017

Manufacturing factories are producing basically three designs for silos – horizontal, conventional open-top tower, and oxygen limiting silo. All these are storage silos for food used by farmers to handle their livestock feeds. A silo is not just a structure that is used to reserve harvested crop in one place, it also provides the right environment for a proper ensiling process to take place. This decreases the feed loss. Experts design the structure in a way that it offers labor saving storage.

Let’s talk about the types of silos available today –

• Vertical silos

Tower or vertical silos have been manufacturers with distinct material choices in the past. Today, manufacturers often use concrete or steel to construct a vertical silo. These feed storage silos are further categorized into two designs-

• Open top silo
• Oxygen limiting silo

Open top silo are made of concrete. There are many brands of steel open-top silos but concrete models have gained widespread acceptance.

All open-top silos use some sort of top unloader.

Most of the oxygen-limiting silos are made of steel or concrete. The steel units include bolted panels of glass-fused-to-steel. Manufacturers are designing units having galvanized steel with some sort of interior lining or coating to protect the steel from rusting effects of silage acids.

• Horizontal Silos

Manufacturers design three types of horizontal silos – trench, bunker, and stack.

Trench is a silo that is constructed into ground by boring a hole or trench below the natural grade-line.

Bunker is a silo that is constructed above the natural grade-line.

Stack is a pile of silage where no structural walls are made to hold the material.

Both trench and bunker silos may include walls of wood or concrete. The selection of wall types and materials will be defined by capital and annual cost, availability and durability of materials, silos type, and personal choice.

You can select the silos for feed as per the suitability. The choice of any storing silo should be based on how well it will fit into your operation. What will be the labor requirements? What will be the livestock and feed type? What will be the climatic condition? What will be the size of livestock? If you get answers to these questions in a silo, select it.

Storage silos for food are best choice to make to house livestock and feed products. Feedback for this post is open; do write your thoughts about the subject in below section