The Farm Paparazzi

Winter is a slower time for us on the farm. I tell people it’s like all our weekends combined, because we don’t get any down time the rest of the year. One of my farmer husband’s colder-weather tasks is to haul stored corn to local feeders. Field corn is raised for livestock feed (this is different than the sweet corn consumed by humans). We sell some of our corn at harvest, but the rest of it goes into storage for marketing at a later date. When we sell corn to local feeders, we haul it to them.

Tyler loads the grain into the truck using the auger unload on the grain bin.

Then he drives to the feedyard. This corn was headed to True Feedlot where they finish 20,000 head of cattle every year! Finishing is the final stage in beef production before going to the processing plant.

Once at the feedyard, the driver pulls on the scale to get a full weight.

Once the truck is on the scale, he runs into the scale house to print the weight on the weight ticket.

Then he pulls around to the feed mill where he unloads.

The feed mill operator turns on the auger and as the corn unloads into the pit, it is lifted into the storage facility.

The corn will be milled and mixed with the rest of the feed ration ingredients (this varies, but can include distiller’s grains, liquid minerals and more). Soon these cattle will become delicious, nutritious beef for your table!

Once the load is empty, he pulls back onto the scale and take a “tare” weight of the empty truck. Subtract the tare weight from the gross weight (taken from the full load) and you get the number of pounds of corn delivered. Pretty simple stuff.

And then my farmer husband does it again (and again, and again).

What’s happening in your world this time of year?

God Bless You & American Agriculture,

Liz

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” – Genesis 1:26

Tags: corn, feeding cattle, Genesis 1:26, grain bin, hauling corn, raising beef, storing corn, trucking, weighing trucks