Chopping requires 80-100 HP minimum. If you don't have that, forget chopping. As others have said, storage can be as simple as a pile on the ground covered with an 8 mil sheet. We use bunkers with wooden walls covered in plastic and an asphalt floor. Bags are another option although I've never tried that. If I had access to a small diameter bagger I probably would do that since a small bag is probably the most economical way of storing chop on a smaller scale when you consider waste. Even on our bunks... there is a lot more waste than I'd like to see for various reasons. If you're not feeding a lot of animals you need a very small feed face... PLAN on removing 6" of feed face every day and more in warmer weather. That is the killer with bunkers.... Depending on how you go about hauling chop... you either need a high dump and truck or a tractor and a few wagons... and mabey several tractors and wagons if you're going any distance... and another fairly good size tractor on the pile packing... or two packing... A bagger will also require a tractor of close to 100 hp on a small bag if I'm not mistaken. In our case we pack with a Cat D4H and sometimes add a Ford 3930 loader tractor if there's help enough. When things are going well the dozer alone can't keep up packing. We can pound in 25-30 tonne per hour at times in haylage. It pretty well takes all of the dozer's time just to spread that on the pile never mind pack it.
Bales are probably better on a small scale. I wouldn't advise going with any less than 60 hp on the baler. 70 would be a lot better... but otherwise that same 3930 I mentioned loaded, hauled and wrapped a LOT of bales before we switched to chop. The iggest downside to wrapping is the cost of the wrap. That's going to run you 4-5 bucks per bale... but it's low overhead. It's fairly quick... and if you already have the baler... you just need the wrapper and you're in business. Either way you want to watch the moisture and get it down to 45-55% dry matter. Dry bales mold and wet bales.... make a sack of $hit.
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Today's Featured Article - Hydraulics - Cylinder Anatomy - by Curtis von Fange. Let’s make one more addition to our series on hydraulics. I’ve noticed a few questions in the comment section that could pertain to hydraulic cylinders so I thought we could take a short look at this real workhorse of the circuit. Cylinders are the reason for the hydraulic circuit. They take the fluid power delivered from the pump and magically change it into mechanical power. There are many types of cylinders that one might run across on a farm scenario. Each one could take a chapter in
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