Chops Unloads Silage Without Unhooking Forage Wagon

Chops unloads silage without unhooking forage wagon HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Accessories 14-2-11 "We run a smaller-sized dairy farm and I operate machinery by myself so I don't need more than one forage box for chop-ping silage. This setup lets me hookup to both the chopper and wagon and never unhook them until the job is done," says Clarence Zeman, Cato, Wis., about the drive and transport add-ons he came up with for his Deere chopper. Zeman installed a jackshaft that runs from the pto shaft at the front of his Deere one-row chopper back to the input shaft on his International forage wagon. He also mounted a hydraulic cylinder on the tongue of the chopper so he can swing chopper and wagon over behind the tractor for transport and to make it easier to line up with his silo blower to unload. "The manufacturer makes a similar pole swing but the way their cylinder is mounted makes it easy to bend the shaft. With my setup, if I hit a fencepost and break it off, there'll be no damage to the cylinder. When pulling up to the blower, if alignment is off I just back up about 10 ft. and swing the hydraulic cylinder for correction. "To unload at the silo, slip in the forage box drive shaft, shift the chopper feed rolls into neutral, and start up the pto. When the box is empty, disconnect the forage box shaft and head back to the field. It saves lots of time spent hooking and unhooking wagons and one tractor does it all. I use the same setup for fenceline feeding." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Clarence Zeman, 12314 Fisherville Road, Cato, Wis. 54206.

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