Take a road trip to Minnesota (or northern Iowa) sometime when you have a week or more to spend. Bring a trailer behind your pickup truck, a buddy who's not afraid of some manual labor, your gloves and wrenches and drive around the southern part of the state. It shouldn't take you long to spot one you like. Find the owner and there's a good chance he'll let you have it for little or nothing; if not go down the road to the next one and repeat the process. Now disassemble it and load it on your trailer. The roof is the hardest part - if you can find a way to lift it off the crib and bring it down to ground level, it's a lot easier to disassemble. The sides are a piece of cake - just take out the bolts and take them down in sections.

Yes there are lots in different parts of the counrty ! In my area there are only a few left ,most have been taken down or scraped ! Their are only a couple good one still standing ! The others are almost rusted away or beat up run in to used to hold up other this piles of stuff around them and in them! I have found a couple good ones here one I am bringing to my house for our picking show this fall!
There are a few different manuf. One will come apart in five foot sections 3 high ! the other one that I have has one long rods down threw two sections panels !

Their are others that have tin liners in them for shelled corn also !

Did you get a price out of them?

There was no price mentioned in the e-mail, but I am going to try to get a price from them. Will let you know.

About $3.27 a bushel? And that doesn't include the price of concrete! I think most anyone could make a road trip to Iowa or Minnesota pay in a hurry, even if you had to pay $50 or $100 for a good used crib!

Your figures must be for shelled corn not ear corn.  Divide your numbers by 2 and that is how much shelled corn you would get from the ear corn in that crib.

Determine the cubic feet inside the crib and multiply by 0.4

-- Edited by TW on Friday 20th of August 2010 08:50:55 AM

You are right. Those were shelled corn figures. My mistake. Still don't quite understand dividing by 4. If there is 1 bushel of shelled corn per 1.25 cu. ft., and 2 bushels of ear corn equal 1 bushel of shelled, shouldn't you divide total cu. ft. by 2.5 to get shelled corn capacity. Sorry for being so dumb, but I've never dealt with ear corn before. Just trying to get it straight in my head, and hopefully learn something.

On another note, what do you think of grinding ear corn for cattle feed? Anybody still doing this. I know it was done years ago. Don't have any cattle, but grain farming ain't hitting on much around here anymore. Have about 45 acres that would make good pasture (lighter ground, near house for ease of watering), own another 55 of open ground, and rent some small places nearby which could be used for corn and hay. Kinda thinking out loud, I reckon you could say. Just looking for some input.

Thanks! That's good to know!

Jwm, we (my pop, uncle, and I) still grind ear corn for our fat cattle. We raise 30-40 per year from our cow-calf herd and fatten them to finish. We start them right after weaning, mixing in some oats until they all come to the bunk at once. There is a pretty low chance of cattle foundering on ground ear corn because of all the roughage from the cob and shucks. We start blending in shell corn towards the finish. We have two 16' squirrel cages that we fill every year. I think that they are about 15 foot tall, but I have never measured them. We never use all of both cages in any given year, but no corn gets more than two years old. It keeps pretty well in those things. With modern hybrids, it usually takes 10 acres or less to get us the ear corn we need to feed our cattle for the year. A NI 2-row pull type handles the modern hybrids just fine.

i'm interested in this crib if it is still available. easy move for me, i'm right across the river from montville.
russell55@ymail.com

My dad, my friend Brent, and I took down a Behlen crib a few years back. We did take 2x6s and ran them through the side walls to create a platform where Brent and I could unbolt the roof panels and while my dad was using a step ladder to guide the panels down to the ground. Then we unbolted the wall panels and loaded everything onto a trailer. When we arrived back to my dad's farm, we just reversed the process. We did use the tractor/loader to help get the roof panels up and started.  The whole process didn't take alot of muscle just alittle planning and time to do it.   I just wished I would have had the ratchet boxend wrenches back then as I do today.  

I believe my dad paid $75 for that crib on an auction. There were two other identical corn cribs on that auction and they went for $35 a piece. Why the difference? The one we bought was on the site of the auction while the other two were on a different site. We had been at another auction earlier that summer where there was a brand new, never been erected Behlen corn crib. The one thing I remember about the crib was that all of the nuts and bolts were in old wooden military munitions boxes. That one sold for $350.

The corn crib is the pictures. It is the one with the steep pitched roof. I included a closer photo of it with the Heider auger in front of it. I always liked the Behlen cribs because the top cover looks like a pop/beer cap!

Behlen Manufacturing still makes them.  They now call the Zoo Cages on their website.  I just put a new one up this fall.  Behlen contact for corn cribs in Ron Falk.  Call 800-553-5520 or email ron.falk@behlenmfg.com  Ron has about 40 years in this business and is very easy to do business with.

One issue with the new cribs; Behlen no longer makes the vent tubes, so I had to build my own.

-- Edited by obielane on Thursday 24th of November 2011 09:07:50 PM

You can see them on the Behlen web site, with tigers in them. They still come in the galvanized coating or a black painted coating. Zoological cages they are called now.