Chickens actually need gravel and grit for their gizzards to grind up their food, so it's not an issue. It's not really and issue for cattle as well as they'll just pass it, it's more of a problem with the mill.

Fun facts, not really fun so much as disgusting and reckless, but they scrape the floor of those chicken concentration camps and scoop up all of the spilt feed and straw and chickenshit and they feed it To like cows and such, and that is to a large degree how bird flu got spread to the dairy cows.

No, actually the moisture can help the milling process. The big guys have mills set up to add water as they mill to improve the consistency of the product.

Too much moisture and the grain will sprout and clump up in the bin, but snow isn't really much actual water.

Ah, that makes much more sense! I didn’t think to account for another out of sight 👍

wind I guess, as it's falling from a higher point it has time to fly a little beforehand

That was puzzling me too! I haven’t ever moved one myself but my understanding was it’s a bit of a pain to move the loader track, so I’m not sure how the grain ended up in that pattern. You’d think if the loader was still running it would only be in a pile at the end. But I’ve also never had to deal with a mess like this.

stuff, and things

About

Mostly oats, some rye in it right now. We'd usually mix in barley but we have a bunch of rye since we started growing cover crops and the distillers around only take so much. So it goes in cows.

That's the standard weight for oats, but generally it actually runs 40 to 46 lbs/bu. The standard weight was built a long time ago before much of the modern seed varieties had been bred.

That said, you're right, it's still a lot lighter to shovel than something like wheat, and glorious compared to faba beans which is like shovelling gravel.

And you're right about the slickness, oats are almost a pleasure to shovel. But the dust is really irritating to the skin, at least to most people. It can be rough to deal with at harvest time.

Nobody expects the [slightly delayed] Spanish Inquisition!