Can I store animal feed in a container?

The decision you are actually making

Almost nobody asks this question in the abstract. You already have feed somewhere, and it is not working. It is in a corner of the barn that mice found two winters ago, or in a stack of plastic barrels that are cracking, or in the bed of a truck under a tarp because the barn is full. The question is whether steel is enough better to be worth moving to.

Set side by side with a wood feed room, a container wins on two counts and loses on one. It wins on rodents outright and it wins on security, because there is nothing to pry and the lockbox shields the padlock. It loses on air, because a wood building leaks air constantly and a sealed steel box does not.

So the deciding factor is not really whether feed can live in a container. It can. The deciding factor is whether you will set it up to breathe. Do that and you have the best feed room on the place. Skip it and you have a very secure sweat box.

Rodents are why most people move feed into steel

A mouse gets into a feed room through a gap it can widen with its teeth. Wood gives it that. So does chipboard, so does a soffit, so does the space where a sill plate has rotted an eighth of an inch away from the block. Give a rat one soft spot and you are feeding it all winter.

There is nothing soft on a shipping container. The walls are 14-gauge weathering steel, the roof is the same, the frame is welded, and the cargo doors close onto rubber gaskets that were built to keep out seawater. There is no gap to widen and nothing to gnaw.

The one opening you create yourself is the vent, so use vents with mesh and check them the same way you would check any screen. And close the doors behind you. Mice do not need a design flaw when you leave them a door.

Moisture is the part you have to work at

Warm damp air meets cold steel and turns into water on the inside of the roof. That is condensation, and in a closed container it can drip onto whatever is under it. Bagged feed is not helped by that, and a paper feed sack that gets wet once will mold from the inside where you cannot see it.

Three habits handle it, and none of them cost anything ongoing.

• Vents. Roof and side vents, low on one wall and high on the other, set up a slow draft that carries damp air out instead of letting it cycle. We weld them in before delivery.
• Pallets. Never set a bag on the deck. Pallets keep the bottom layer in the airflow and off any water that does find its way in.
• Rotation. Feed that turns over every few weeks never sits long enough to have a problem. Load from one end, feed from the other.

Getting the ground right helps more than people expect. A container sitting over a wet low spot wicks damp up from below all year. A crowned gravel pad with blocks under the corners keeps water moving away from the steel instead of pooling under it.

Heat, dark, and what they do to a feed program

A closed steel box in full July sun gets hot. Heat is hard on feed over time, particularly on anything with added fat or added vitamins, and it is one more reason ventilation matters. Two cheap moves take most of that heat away: put the box under a tree line or on the north side of a building if you have that option, and get vents in the roof.

Dark is a feature rather than a problem. Sunlight degrades feed and minerals as surely as heat does, and a container is pitch dark with the doors shut. Add a light if you want to see what you are scooping, though. Electrical work is roughed in on our end, panel and outlets and switches, and a licensed electrician does the final hookup and inspection. We do not pull permits for that.

Set it up so the feed run takes two minutes

The best feed storage is the storage you actually walk to twice a day in the dark and the cold. Put the container near the barn, close enough that carrying two bags is not a project, and point the doors so you are not fighting the wind every time you open them.

Shelving along one wall keeps minerals, supplements and medications where you can find them, and a 20 ft is plenty for a feed room on most places. If the same box is also going to swallow a mower, ATVs and the tools, step up to a 40 ft. You get twice the floor for a good deal less than twice the money, and one long floor beats two short ones.

Send us a photo of the spot you have in mind and what you plan to keep inside. We will tell you which size fits and whether the ground is going to give the truck any trouble.