Tally marks on the back of a hand
It is second cut on a dairy farm. The forager is running, three or four trailers are shuttling to the clamp, and the buckrake driver is spreading and rolling. Carting is charged per load, or the customer wants to know how many loads came off each field. The count is kept by whoever remembers: a trailer driver with tally marks in the dust on his cab window, the clamp driver with a notepad, the forager driver in his head.
At the end of the day, the counts are compared. One trailer driver has fourteen, another eleven, the clamp driver has forty-three in total, which does not add up to what the trailer drivers say. The customer, who watched from the yard, thinks it was more like forty. The figure on the invoice ends up being a negotiation.
Why load counts never agree
Silage is a fast, noisy operation, and counting is nobody's main job.
- Trailer drivers are focused on keeping up with the forager and on the road back to the clamp.
- The clamp driver sees every load but is busy spreading and rolling.
- Loads from different fields go to the same clamp, so per-field counts are harder still.
- Customer trailers and drivers may be in the chain too, counting in their own way.
- Half loads at the end of a field, or when moving between fields, are counted differently by everyone.
If you charge by the acre, the count matters less for billing, but it still matters for the customer, who wants to know what each field produced, and for you, if you want to know how many trailers a job needs.
What an argued count costs
The obvious cost is the invoice. Either you undercount and lose money, or you overcount and the customer queries it, and a query at the start of a long relationship is not what anyone wants. Most contractors round down to keep the peace, which means giving away loads.
The less obvious cost is planning. Load counts per field, per hour, and per trailer tell you whether the team was balanced, whether the forager was waiting or the trailers were, and how many trailers the same job will need next year.
A load count that everyone can see
What we build is a load count that is captured at the moment each load happens, with one tap, and that everyone involved sees.
- Each trailer driver has a big button on a phone or tablet in the cab. When they pull away from the forager full, they tap it. The load is recorded with the time, the trailer and the current field.
- The clamp driver can tap when each load is tipped, giving a second count to check against.
- The current field is picked at the start of each field by the forager operator, or taken from the phone's location, so loads are split by field automatically.
- Half loads can be marked as such with a long press, and your rules decide how they are charged.
- Customer trailers can be included by giving their drivers the same link.
- At the end of the day, the count per field, per trailer and in total is shown, with the trailer and clamp counts side by side. The customer can see the same figures if you share them.
| Count | Who records it | What it is used for |
|---|---|---|
| Loads per trailer | Trailer driver's tap | Planning and operator records |
| Loads per field | Taps, split by current field | Customer's field records |
| Loads tipped | Clamp driver's tap | Cross-check |
| Total loads per job | All of the above | Invoice, if charged per load |
If your trailers have weighing, or your forager records yield data that you can access, we can add weights, but the load count works on its own.
An evening without the negotiation
At the end of the day, the job shows forty-one loads from the trailer taps and forty-one from the clamp, with one half load marked. The split per field is there. You share the summary with the customer by text. The invoice carries the same figure, and there is nothing to argue about.
Next year, when the same customer books second cut, you can see how many trailers the job needed and how long it took.
Are your silage loads counted like this?
- Loads are counted with tally marks, notepads or memory.
- Different people's counts rarely agree.
- Load counts per field are guessed or not kept.
- The figure on the invoice is sometimes a negotiation.
- You round down to avoid arguments with customers.