Managing a any farm is a challenge at times, keeping the feed up to the cows on a pasture based dairy can be a huge challenge. We don’t have the feed our cows are going to eat next week, it’s still growing. It’s a bit like running a factory on “just in time logistics”, except if something goes wrong we can’t just shut down, we have to keep our cows well fed.
Due to the unusually wet season we have experienced we have been relying on a bit of crushed grain to supplement the pasture and keep our cows well fed. One load of grain with too much trash (hulls and straw) in it brought our roller mill to a stand still last week.
Two visits by a crane and some engineering work the roller mill is crushing grain again today.
Always keen to capitalise on an opportunity, while the crane was on site we moved a silo. 
Montrose Dairy 
The silly question is… what did the crane have to do with unblocking the roller mill? A couple of years ago we had large stones blocking the bottom of the silo. Had to remove the bottom plate to get them out without letting too much grain out. Trash is a regular problem we have too. Non ferrous metal doesn’t help either. Just some of the joys of crushing your own…
Yes don’t usually need a crane to unblock a roller mill!
The blocked roller mill started a chain of events, with no grain running through the mill, additive pellets and vegetable oil (which enter the auger after the rollers) clogged up the flighting in the main auger. Once we removed the flighting from the auger we found the cracked welds and clogged bearings.
Incidentally the crane operator said it wasn’t the first one he had done this week.