If you asked a group of dairy farmers in Central Wisconsin to name their least favorite job on the farm, you would probably get a unanimous answer: covering the bunker silo.
Imagine it from an outsider’s perspective. You’ve just spent two straight weeks working 18-hour days to chop corn or hay. You are exhausted. The equipment is dirty. Everyone wants to go home. But before anyone can rest, the entire crew has to climb up a mountain of packed feed, roll out massive sheets of plastic, and then manually throw hundreds of heavy rubber tires to hold it all down.
It is grueling, back-breaking work. It’s the agricultural equivalent of carrying shingles up a ladder to roof a house, except the roof is squishy, sometimes slippery, and you’re often doing it in the freezing wind or pouring rain.
But what if you didn’t have to do it by hand anymore?
At Midwest Sidewalls, we are all about modernizing the bunker. That is why we are incredibly proud to offer the silage tire shooter, a piece of equipment that is completely transforming how farms in Clark, Marathon, and surrounding counties finish their harvests.
What Exactly is a Silage Tire Shooter?
If you are new to the operational side of farming, the concept is brilliantly simple. A silage tire shooter is a specialized mechanical attachment that connects to the front of a skid steer, wheel loader, or telehandler.
Instead of a bucket or a fork, the front of the machine features a spinning mechanism. The operator loads a stack of bias ply sidewalls onto the attachment. Then, driving along the top or the side of the bunker, the operator uses the hydraulics to literally “shoot” or dispense the sidewalls one by one across the plastic covering.
It turns a job that used to require four or five people slipping and sliding on top of a pile into a one-man job done from the comfort of a climate-controlled cab.
The Top 3 Reasons Your Farm Needs a Shooter
Upgrading your feed management equipment isn’t just about making life easier (though that is a massive perk). It is a strategic business decision. Here is why investing in a shooter pays for itself.
1. Solving the Labor Shortage
Finding reliable farm labor in the Midwest is harder than it has ever been. When you do find good employees, the last thing you want to do is burn them out on the worst job on the farm.
Traditionally, covering a bunker requires a group of workers tossing tires to one another. With a silage tire shooter, you drastically reduce your labor needs. One person operates the skid steer, and perhaps one other person walks the pile to do minor adjustments and ensure the sidewalls are touching. You can reallocate your crew to maintenance, cleaning up, or sending them home to rest for the next day.
2. Prioritizing Crew Safety
Safety is paramount. Silage plastic is incredibly slick, especially if there is morning dew, a light frost, or rain. Walking on a sloped bunker carrying a heavy, awkward piece of rubber is a recipe for twisted ankles, blown-out shoulders, and dangerous falls.
According to agricultural health experts, ergonomic strain and slip-and-fall accidents are among the leading causes of lost-time injuries on farms. By mechanizing the heavy lifting, you completely remove the ergonomic strain. The machine does the throwing; your team stays safe.
3. Speeding Up the Seal
When you finish filling a bunker, the clock is ticking. Every hour that the chopped forage sits exposed to oxygen, you are losing valuable nutrients and dry matter. We call this “shrink,” and it is essentially profits evaporating into thin air.
To preserve the feed properly, the plastic needs to go on, and the weight needs to be applied as fast as possible. Because a machine doesn’t get tired, it can distribute sidewalls significantly faster than a human crew. The faster you get the pile weighted down, the faster you lock out oxygen, resulting in a higher quality feed for your herd come winter.
The Perfect Match: Bias Ply Sidewalls
It is important to note that a silage tire shooter works best when paired with the right material. If you are still using whole, uncut car tires, a shooter is going to struggle. Whole tires are bulky, they hold water, and they don’t stack cleanly.
This equipment is designed to be paired with bias ply sidewalls. Because our sidewalls are uniform, flat, and stackable, you can load dozens of them onto the shooter’s spindle at once. They slide off the machine smoothly and land flat on the plastic. They don’t bounce, and because they have no metal wires protruding, they will not puncture your expensive oxygen barrier film.
It is a complete system: the ultimate covering material paired with the ultimate covering machine.
Ready to Modernize Your Bunker?
Harvest is a marathon, but the finish line shouldn’t be a grueling test of physical endurance for you and your crew. As farms get larger and labor gets tighter, mechanization is the only sustainable path forward.
If you are tired of fighting the pile, throwing out your back, and rushing to beat the weather, it is time to upgrade your operation.
Check out the specs, watch the video of it in action, and see the difference for yourself on our Tire Shooter product page. If you have questions about compatibility with your current skid steer or loader, or if you want to bundle it with a load of our premium bias ply sidewalls, give the team at Midwest Sidewalls a call today.
Let’s make this upcoming harvest the easiest one you’ve ever had.