Anyone still use harvestores?
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URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37569
Printed Date: 21 Aug 2025 at 11:23am
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Topic: Anyone still use harvestores?
Posted By: D-allis Iowa
Subject: Anyone still use harvestores?
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2011 at 9:45pm
I cannot think of anyone in our area who still uses them. The pics were taken today. I doubt if I use mine many more years. The guy helping me chop is an iron man and is cutting them down with a plasma cutter just as you would fell a tree. He took one down last week and he has 2 more to go. |
Replies:
Posted By: powertech84
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2011 at 10:29pm
| We use ours for high moisture shell corn, but our unloader needs attention before we fill it again this fall. |
Posted By: Kevin in WA
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2011 at 10:38pm
| Still use mine, fill with corn in the fall and grass in the spring. |
Posted By: Nathan (SD)
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 12:34am
| People around here give them away too. I always wished I had one to use. Neighbor moved in a used 20 x 60 about 5 years ago. They had a 2 that they used on his home farm and he split off on his own. 4 years ago his dad died and then 2 years ago his brother died unexpectantly. Now those 2 sit unused on the home farm. |
Posted By: SHAMELESS
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 3:18am
| they were good silos...just the unloaders sucked! |
Posted By: Larry(OH)
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 5:27am
|
there is a ton of them in use around this area by the dairy guys ------------- '40 WC puller,'50 WD puller,'50 M puller '65 770 Ollie *ALLIS EXPRESS contact* I can explain it to you, BUT I cannot understand it for you!! |
Posted By: michaelwis
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 5:32am
|
Have 3 use 1 . The corn units are sweet ....The forage units suck ..unloaders are pricey too ... ------------- WD WD45 DIESEL D 14 D-15 SERIES 2 190XT TERRA TIGER ac allcrop 60 GLEANER F 6060 7040.and attachments for all Proud to be an active farmer |
Posted By: John (C-IL)
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 6:41am
| My brother still uses his 20 x 70 built in 1976, corn silage in the fall and haylage in the summer. |
Posted By: TomYaz
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 6:44am
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The company is still in business, visited their website recently:
http://www.harvestore.com/ - http://www.harvestore.com/ ------------- If its not an All-Crop, it all crap! |
Posted By: cih_8910
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 9:22am
| s |
Posted By: D17JIM
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 12:24pm
| Some farmers in this area who are out of the livestock business are using them for dry corn storage. |
Posted By: Pat the Plumber CIL
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 9:43pm
|
A local seed company I worked for leased a farm with a few of them.While I was unloading some silage to feed out, the bottom unloading chain broke.Farm manager was not very happy.I must have been forcing it too fast(young and dumb).He made me help the crew that came in to fix.They had a box that bolted to opening and long bolts tightened and moved boxes in to make a cave.Had to dig silage out by hand as boxes moved into problem area.Smell of that silage will stay with you for a while. ------------- You only need to know 3 things to be a plumber;Crap rolls down hill,Hot is on the left and Don't bite your fingernails 1964 D-17 SIV 3 Pt.WF,1964 D-15 Ser II 3pt.WF ,1960 D-17 SI NF,1956 WD 45 WF. |
Posted By: Amos
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 8:10am
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I have three, right now I have a sheet off my corn silage unit as I have the conveyor chain off the inboard end. Father said it would empty the silo and I disagreed, nothing like digging out the lats 15 feet when the dome has collapsed on the unloader, not the first one I have dug out. They are great units in their day but now they are all in need of new roofs and resealing all the sheets. The unloaders are great pieces of equipment, just have to have regular maintenance and there needs to be some soource for parts that are reasonably priced with good quality, especially the chains, as we have gone through more aftermarket chains tht are just all the wrong metallurgy construction. I have one for corn silage, one for haylage, and one that will be dry corn as we do not feed high moisture any more, once I get the leg put together to fill it that is.
Is that a Gehl 1540 blower you are using? I have one and run it with my 6060. I can fill a 20 x 80 on a tank of fuel using that tractor and blower, corn in the 25 x 80 takes almost two tanks of fuel though.
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Posted By: dave63
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 5:15pm
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Lots of them used around here but the big farms are getting away from upright silos. I saw some that they cut doors in and put a chute and top unloader in. ------------- The universal answer to all questions is yes, how much do you want to spend? |
Posted By: HD6GTOM
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 6:04pm
| When I was in the army in Mannheim Germany, several farmers had small ones. never saw them filled. We were in an area where they had a lot of sugar beats. Always wondered if they used the tops of them for silage. |
Posted By: TMiller/NC
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2011 at 7:21pm
| The furniture plant I worked for had one that we stored wood dust and chips to use for boiler fuel. It has a Laidig unloader that had a chain on the end of the sweep auger that was a bear to repair, if there were chips in the silo, and of course if the chain broke the silo was always full or mostly full. Would feed dust and chips out in the exit auger hopper by gravity and punch and gouge method until it domed over then squeeze up in there and make repair. Not a very pleasant job. Tim |
Posted By: Chris WI
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2011 at 10:01pm
| We had two 20x80 forage units with Harvestore Goliath unloaders, and one 20x40 grain unit with Harvestore auger unloader. We used them up until we sold our main farm in 2006, we were milking 100 cows and they worked great! I have herd many people bash them through the years, but they are the same as a lot of things in farming, if managed properly they work fine. The biggest trick in forage is to not skimp on short arming the unloader if the silo is empty, or if the dome caves in, if that happens it makes the unloader work very hard. A lot of guys around here are replacing the roofs with new Stainless steel roofs Harvestore is selling. I can also think of at least three new units to go up around me in the last year. They are mainly building them for shelled corn. Guys are sick of the waste of bunkers, bags, or stave silos for shelled corn. |
Posted By: Wes (VA)
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2011 at 10:17pm
| There's a place in PA that sells or installs top unloaders in harvestores... I just can't put my hands on that paper that I saw the ad in right now.. |
Posted By: Kevin in WA
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 10:23am
| Amos, have you tried using chains and sprockets from Equipment Service? |
Posted By: KY
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 10:47am
|
A few harvestores in use around here. Most use concrete top unload silos. The blower/unloader for them is pretty pricy also but easier to get to. Nothing better than climbing two or three or four times a morning when the bull wheel burries or the silage frreezes to the walls.... great feed though. |
Posted By: Amos
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 12:04pm
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Kevin in WA wrote:Posted By: Calvin Schmidt
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2011 at 3:39pm
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I was going to hold off but couldn't resist. Our company built bottom unloading concrete silos for 25 years before I sold our farm silo business in 1995. We competed with harvestore and know all about Laidig and their parts prices etc.. Thought I'd post a few pictures from my album.
The silo that fell down was built by a Amish rebuilder out of two silos. The transition sheet was waaaay to low and it fell over in about half an hour.
The leaning silo was is southern PA. That what can happen when you don't think you need to short arm the unloader in HM corn. It finally fell over about a month later. The ironic thing is now we are working with the industrial H      arvestore dealer on some water towers.------------- Nothing is impossible if it is properly financed |