Easier Way To Unroll Silage Plastic

Easier Way To Unroll Silage Plastic HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Forage Handling 30-5-17 To make the job of covering our silage pile with plastic a lot easier, we used a device borrowed from a friend. It's a set of steel welding sawhorses that he made with sets of caster wheels on top. It turned out to be very handy for rolling out silage plastic. This year, we used a 60 by 150-ft. roll of plastic to cover our pile. My husband, Keith, says the roll weighed at least 300 lbs. Instead of wrestling with the plastic roll by hand so much, as he has done in the past, Keith used a nylon sling to lift it with the tractor bucket, and then slid a section of 2 1/2-in. steel pipe through the center of the roll. Then, he laid the whole thing between the two-piece sawhorse (sitting at the center of one end of the silage pile) so that the ends of the pipe sat on top of the castors. Keith and our 13-year-old son Kyle, were able to easily unroll the plastic by pulling the end of it as they walked up and over the length of the pile. From there, they just unfolded and spread it out the rest of the way. It allowed them to get the job done more quickly, and with much less effort than in the past. Since this task must be done when there's basically no air movement, it is extra helpful to complete it speedily. A very slight breeze was worrying Keith, but because they were able to complete the job so fast, they had less risk of being foiled if the wind had picked up. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Janis Schole, R.R. 1, Pickardville, Alberta, Canada T0G 1W0; ph 780 349-3538).

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