# Death trenches or?



## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I just want to confirm what I am thinking these were...

I passed through some cattle country the other week, from a distance, you could see thick white plastic tarp covering a large, long mound and tires places evenly over the tarp. 
Then the smell hit me, indredibly disgusting and strong, worse than the dump, worse than any rotting animal smell I've had the displeasure to reach my nose before. As I passed, I could see they had used tractors to dig a huge, long trench and some of it was still not full, so you could see black and some feet of left over space. 
A few miles down the road, on another properly, the same exact thing, slightly smaller, but same white plastic, same trench and tires and that smell.
My guess is that they are dump sites of a large amount of animal or animal left overs. But these were huge, 100ft 40ft wide I'd say. I would hate to live anywhere near those areas. 
So, what were they?


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## tnokie (Jan 30, 2007)

Those are proably silage trenches. I didn't realize they smelled tho. Maybe some of our cattle pros will enlighten us!


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

trench silos


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## COWS (Dec 23, 2012)

Like the others say, silage. Google silage for a description of the process, but basically a crop, such as corn, is cut while partly green, chopped up, and dumped in the pit or on top of the ground and covered with plastic. Bacteria that lives in the absence if air processes the silage so that it changes its form but retains its food value. The process is used to preserve the food value in the crop. Hay can be made into silage by wrapping the partly dried hay in plastic after baling it in round bales. The saying is you cant make sorry hay better by the silage process, just retain what value it has. Cows like silage and clean it up quite well. Feeding silage to dairy cows increases milk production. 

As for smell, it won't smell long. 

COWS


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Silos once were used to store silage, you know, those round towers next to the barn? Some were glass coated steel and blue in color. Now, silage is compacted by driving over it and covered in tarps. Here is some info:
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADQ897.pdf

Interesting that your first thought was dead cattle. Dead animals and animal "leftovers" have value. They go to Rendering Plants where it is made into all sorts of valuable products, like ingredients in lipstick.


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## CJBegins (Nov 20, 2009)

The farm that I currently live on and was raised on has a silo. I never really understood why it was called a silo but with the above description it makes perfect sense to me now. 

So I could harvest a field of corn and put it in this silo, cover it in a tarp and then use it to feed my cows in the winter. What about the water running thru it and losses due to critters such as raccoons and such?


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

We call them pit silos here, we had one for years before we got an upright one. The key to pit silos is compaction, as your filling them you have to pack them down very tight or they spoil quikly. They work very well, and you can either cover them, or you can put about an inch of oats over the whole thing and wet it down, they sprout and grow and seal the top up real good. I would guess that is what you see, but I have no idea. > THanks Marc


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

CJBegins said:


> The farm that I currently live on and was raised on has a silo. I never really understood why it was called a silo but with the above description it makes perfect sense to me now.
> 
> So I could harvest a field of corn and put it in this silo, cover it in a tarp and then use it to feed my cows in the winter. What about the water running thru it and losses due to critters such as raccoons and such?


An upright silo would have a top to keep out rain and critters couldn't get into it. Corn and stalks need to be well chopped. Farmers would use enough each day that the exposed layer wouldn't get a chance to spoil. On the side of the silo, there are a string of openings, each with it's own cover. Open the cover near the top of your silage and shovel it out the opening and it falls into your feed cart below. The Blue ones were made to auger the silage out from the bottom.


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

Oh my goodness: Death Trenches! 

Personally I sort of like the smell of silage. :gaptooth: :shrug:


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## FarmerDavid (Jul 16, 2012)

gone-a-milkin said:


> Personally I sort of like the smell of silage. :gaptooth: :shrug:


Thats what i was thinking. Most ive been around has a sweet plesant smell to it.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I don't mind silage either. Maybe he got a whiff of something else?


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## CJBegins (Nov 20, 2009)

Haypoint, what I should have said was a ground silo or a pit. Lol

My daddy always talked about it but never used it for that purpose. It made a pretty good tornado shelter -minus a top  but the tornado did go over us and not hurt any of us.


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

You're looking at the trench silo but smelling the manure lagoon. One you can easily see, the other you don't.

Martin


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## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

What is a manure lagoon?
Why would it smell like rotting animals at both trenches and not anywhere else? 
That's why I thought it was animal parts, it's weird to me that they would dump them, that's why I asked. 
I've never heard of trench silos nor do I know anything about silage. We have two old, concrete silos, no top to them anymore, one has no doors and the other has some of it's wooden and metal door parts. That explains why those little doorways were there, never knew the point before. 
Maybe some owners of these ground silos can't smell it because you're used to it. I can't really smell any stink from any of my animals unless I've been in a farm smell free area for awhile. 
Yea, death trench was bad wording, didn't realize it until this morning. But the smell coming off them made me think of it. 

Thanks!


Here's a picture I found when I Googled "Silage Trench". Y'all were right.


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## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

I've also seen something similar to the picture below. It was much larger and more square, but I was down the hill on the highway and the opening could of been on the far side. It had no smell at all any of the times I've passed it.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

heheheeee. That's their food!!! Yummy. But I agree with Paquebot. You're probably smelling something else. Silage smells sweet and like rotting plants, but not in a bad way -unless it's gone sour with too much warm, too much wet and too much air.


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Big trench silos feed big numbers of cattle. Big numbers of cattle produce a big quantity of manure. Big quantities of manure can only be spread at certain times of the year and on certain land. It's held in large pits called manure lagoons which are like large ponds or small lakes depending upon the size of the operation. The bulk of it is liquid since it must be pumped out. While in the lagoon, it ferments. When the "cake" on top is disturbed, you do not want to be downwind. Same applies for when it is spread on land. In fact, you do not want to even drive through the vapor cloud in a vehicle with all windows closed. To a city dweller, it's worse than the smell of death. To a country dweller, it's the smell of money.

Martin


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## kycrawler (Sep 18, 2011)

silage smells pretty good before it goes through the cow :shocked:. imagine a big lawn sprinkler spreading 5500 gallons of manure behind a tractor each trip about 30 ft wide just spraying it on the fields thats probably what you were smelling the ground was frozn good here the last few weeks with no snow cover so lots of manure got hauled


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## fordson major (Jul 12, 2003)

before it is pumpable, it is agitated, sometimes with a nozzle on the pump, can smell very ripe for a long way.


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