Importance

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Abstract

A feed wagon for feeding silage or concentrate, or both, to animals, such as cows, which comprises automatically operated loading and unloading mechanisms. The wagon selectively automatically loads silage at ground level at two slot silos and silage or concentrate at a standing silo. It discharges in a feed alley between stalls in a cowshed. The route between the slot silos, the standing silo, and the feed alley is marked by active or passive beacons. The wagon carries detectors for detecting the beacons and a computer which cooperates with the detectors and steering mechanisms for the wagon to move the wagon between the slot silos, the standing silo and the feed alley travelling on the route marked by the beacons. The method comprises automatically loading relatively small quantities of silage on the feed wagon, moving that silage to the feed alley by guidance from its onboard computer and detection of the passive beacons between the silos and the cowshed, automatically discharging the silage in the feed alley to be received by stalls, moving the feed wagon after discharging silage to a selected silo by guiding the onboard computer and detection of the beacons along the route and repeating these steps on a substantially continuous basis.

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