I drove by a neighboring horse farm the other day and saw they had a pretty big metal grain hopper bin. Has anyone ever used one of these for horse feed? How do you get the feed loaded in? The one I saw had a ladder on the side but the top would have been 10-12 feet from the ground. At my place, we feed about 150 lbs of horse feed a day that we get in 50 lb bags from our local mill. The waste of the bags bother me, and we have issues trying to keep mice out of the bags. We get about 40 bags delivered by the mill at a time. Short of climbing a ladder with a 50 lb bag, how does one get the feed in the hopper bin?
Those smaller hopper bins have a handle with a rod you can pull up or let down from the bottom, that opens the trap door at the top, where a grain truck with an auger can deliver feed into the bin.
They have a sliding door that opens at the bottom and so feed is gravity fed down a short chute into your bucket or feed cart.
Many larger horse operations use those.
We used to have one for plain oats and it was sure cheaper than oats by the sack.
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Thanks for responding! Do you think Equine Senior could get delivered in a grain truck with an auger, in principle?
suggest you inquire with all suppliers in your area as the concept is not new
Most likely you will find the feed available in bulk reusable bagging, locally since 2015 we can get Purina Strategy in 1000 pound or 2000 pound bulk bagging…the cost saving was just about 4 cents per pound (plus only one bag to handle while is completely reusable)
https://dandlfarmandhome.com/bulk-purina-strategy-now-available/
like Bluey, all the Saddlebred farms I worked on in Kentucky had bulk hopper bins mostly for whole oats which were crimped on site before feeding
Bulk is not workable for us as our total monthly feed usage is 100 pounds of one type and 50 of another.
Whole grains are stable to store, fabricated feed rations like sweet feed or senior feed that have molasses and oils may not work as well unless feed quickly, they may spoil over time.
Rations like the sticky senior feed that comes in sacks may not flow in a hopper, but bunch up and get stuck where you have to clean the mess out.
If you have rations made into dry pellets, those would be fine.
Our vet designed a complete feed most stables here use, that is made into dry pellets:
You can feed only those, no hay needed. Horses are doing very well on it.
Is easy to store in sacks and take sacks on the road, horses eat it slowly, they have something in their feed pan for part of the day and that product would flow just fine in a hopper.
See if your mill may have or can make you something like that for a hopper.
As @clanter mentions, hoppers work best if you are feeding large volumes, so whatever is in there doesn’t sit there long time, is fed quickly, before it spoils.
That’s interesting, because it was a Saddlebred place near me where i saw the hopper bin. We feed just over 1000 lbs a week of horse feec so I think I would be ok on using the feed fast enough. whether it would be too sticky is another question. I will talk to our mill. i appreciate the feedback–had not see one of these at a horse farm before
Former feed sales rep here.
Bulk trucks are used to “blow” feed into bulk bins with adjustable pipes to reach the top of the bulk bins.
Most feed manufacturers will not put textured (sweet type feeds) into a bulk bin. The problem is sweet feed tends to hang up, and “bridge”, which is forming areas that don’t flow down the cone of the bin.
Companies will do pelleted feeds in bulk, but the pelleted products are limited to the lower fat ones as the higher fat pellets tend to crumble easier and the customer ends up with more fines, which does not make the customer happy.
You could do a lower fat bulk pellet and then add a fat supplement for the horses that need a little more.
Most large manufacturers have a 3 ton minimum, and want customers to go through it at a good rate, and not leave it in a bin too long because heating and cooling outdoor temperatures can cause issues. If you are going through 1,000 lbs. per week, it sounds like you’d be a good candidate for bulk, but I will also tell you this- I was surprised I never saw huge savings for bulk customers. It was usually about $40 per ton, which was basically the cost of the bags.
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Very interesting and helpful! Thank you!
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which could be resold
I do not know who would buy them but I resold empty Purina bags to a person who needed the bags for a marketing event at a horse show at Will Rodgers.
I do see ads on the internet of people selling the empty bags, I have no idea if they are actually selling them
These new bags are nearly indestructible
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Great information from @cutter99!
I will add a story.
One of the major name brands used to ship bulk pelleted feed in my part of the world. I know two places that modified their barns to accommodate this because it was a savings and not having to deal with the bags is for sure a bonus.
And then… they stopped doing it. That mill no longer offered bulk delivery.
So now both places have a bulk bin taking up square footage and no place locally produces a product that they will ship in bulk.
The bulk service was amazing while it was happening.
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You may also consider portable hoppers, that come in different sizes.
The advantage is, you can if not too far drive the hopper to be filled at the mill directly, you can move it around to different locations around your place and if and when not needed any more, sell it easily.
Here is one company that sells portable ones, don’t know who they are, but the picture with several on a row shows the long metal rod that you operate from the ground that opens and closes the trap door on top used to fill it, no one has to climb the ladder up there for that:
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I work for a company that ships feed: horse, cattle, swine, poultry.
The mill gets the (horse) feeds in bulk, and bags at the mill, but farms that want to get it in bulk have it shipped before it is bagged, at a significant savings. (the mill I work at makes poultry feed, but bags horse feed that is sent from BC).
The company I work for has different sizes of trucks to deliver, and the ability to deliver to a variety of sizes of bins. There is no minimum order as far as I know (unless you are ordering a custom made feed), but there is a minimum charge for delivery.
If you do go for bulk feed, it may be worth talking to the shipping company before installing your bin, to make sure the specifications work for them. Sweet feeds are deliverable in bulk, but can be tricky if super cold out, and can stick to the bins if you don’t have a newer bin.
We have Purina’s regional horse feed mill less than five miles from us in downtown Ft Worth
We are told this mill only makes horse feeds because they do not want cross contamination from feeds that include Rumensin (monensin sodium) which is often included in commercial feeds designed for ruminants like cattle and goats.
Rumensin is an ingredient that can be lethal to horses .
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I know the case of the barns I was talking about, the mill was actually making the feed.
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I was referring specifically to the mill I WORK in, not feed mills in general.
And yes, mills are usually specific to animals for production, but not usually for bagging of product. It isn’t feasible to have mills for all species in all areas, so the mills make species specific feed, but have bagging and/or bin storage for other species, so bulk feed can often be ordered even from areas where the feed isn’t made.
I’m a feed company nutritionist, and I hate, hate, hate bulk horse feed. We sell it, but I strongly discourage it when I’m consulting with a farm that hasn’t purchased a bulk bin yet.
Most companies (including mine) have a 3-ton minimum for delivery. Our general quality-control guideline is that feed should be used up within 60 days of production, and I prefer bulk feed to be used within 30 days - especially if it’s textured and/or in a hot, humid environment. Very, very few horse farms have enough animals to go through that amount of a single feed in a month.
There are some products that just won’t work in a bulk system - anything high fat, most senior feeds (softer pellets), etc. The bin needs to be maintained and checked regularly for leaks and clumps of old feed that have gotten hung up in the machinery. EVERY time I get a moldy feed complaint on bulk feed, it’s because the farm hasn’t been checking to make sure the bin is completely empty before ordering a new delivery.
Don’t do it is my professional advice! Many stores will give a “pallet discount” if you buy a ton (40 bags, if the feed comes in 50-lb. packages) or more at a time, which can bring you pretty close to the bulk feed price.
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is the production date Clearly marked on each bag in a method an average buyer can understand?
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We stamp a Julian date on the tape at the bottom of each bag. It’s not a top-secret system or anything like that.
And most feed WILL keep for much, much longer - as long as it is properly stored. But I still don’t want customers feeding “old” feed, if at all possible.
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Our vet doesn’t even like feed bins, unless used to put whole sacks in them.
They say buy in sacks and feed off each sack.
If you have a sick horse or more that may have eaten something that didn’t agree with them, you can check what sack they are eating from.
That can help with diagnostics.
Harder if sacked feed is mixed in feed bins.
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This has been interesting to read! I thought maybe there was a way around so many separate bags of Equine Senior, but it does not sound like it. Interesting to me that the feed hopper bins are associated with Saddlebreds.
I really wish there was a recycling program for the bags!
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