Square Bale Wrapper. For Silage?

[Grrrr]

At what moisture percentage can you start making silage bales?

Trac-Tech, Awesome pictures!

Basically whatever you want. Sometimes we bale right behind the baler - sometimes it is made nearly as dry as hay.

You can also add additives etc to it to improve the quality - more popular with clamp silage.

Wrapping is also useful when you have to bale at night, when the hay is damp. If the weather is very uncooperative than baling at night is sometimes unavoidable.

If you bale wet grass and make too bigger bale you will end up with immovable lumps sitting around your field. You wouldn't believe how much moisture grass can hold. Enough to make the net wrap snap when you put a spike in the bale to lift it.

 

[Wildcat Ranch]

So you can bale right after you cut? Has anyone tried feeding silage to sheep? Also, who makes the wrapper for the small squares? Here in the NW, I think something like that may have some value...

 

[Grrrr]

So you can bale right after you cut? Has anyone tried feeding silage to sheep? Also, who makes the wrapper for the small squares? Here in the NW, I think something like that may have some value...

Yep, sheep see to like it. I think they normally have it a bit dryer.

For the small bale wrapper:
http://www.orkneytoolhire.co.uk/orkney_agricultural_sales/mchale_PDF/McHales_995LM.pdf

There are other companies who make them as well, not sure if they are distributed in the US though.

 

[mark.r]

Everytime I mention silage to horse owners they start talking about their animals getting colic from the fermintation. The grass is too rich I assume. My current boarder won't feed alfalfa and said she wouldn't unless she was competing heavily as her horses don't need that much energy. It's all so confusing.

 

[art]

Horses and baleage don't mix!!!! Baleage is not new and is good for smaller farms often tied to a conventenal style dairy barn that for one reason or the other can't move to the bunks.
Around here the larger farms were the first to go to the bunk silo's and they lengthened there cut to several inches while chopping hayledge vs the vertical storage silo's with an unloader where they can only function with cut under 1/2 inch. The longer cut of the bunks allowed the farmers to reduce the baled hay to clean the stomachs because of the longer hay for good animal health(twisted stomachs). This made it easier for them to put up larger quanities of higher quality feed for the cows with less chance of a rain.
The recutters in the round balers also assit the conventional silo farmers the ability to take advantage of the long cut haylage and the added milk production with less labor.
In the western US the hay ofen drys so fast that they bale alfalfa at nite so the dew helps to keep the leaves attached for less loss of protein.

Some areas wrap all the hay, not just baleage to keep it out of the weather when inside storage is not available.

 

[mark.r]

Horses and baleage don't mix!!!!

Some areas wrap all the hay, not just baleage to keep it out of the weather when inside storage is not available.

These are the two things that I have always been told. So with that been said . . .

There is a difference between baleage and haylage?

When can "hay" be safely wrapped for outside storage and fed to horses?

What are the Europeans wrapping and feeding to horses safetly, haylage?

We just don't see that down here in VA.

 

[Grrrr]

These are the two things that I have always been told. So with that been said . . .

There is a difference between baleage and haylage?

When can "hay" be safely wrapped for outside storage and fed to horses?

What are the Europeans wrapping and feeding to horses safetly, haylage?

We just don't see that down here in VA.

Never heard of baleage before, not made in Europe I don't think.

Haylage, on the other hand, is just hay baled a bit damper. Still almost hay, just not quite finished ready for hay.

The fact that it is wrapped means that it cannot finish drying out as normal hay does when it is stacked. The moisture it is baled with stays with it.

It is in no way green, but not really fluffy either. Just in between.

It is useful when you cannot get a chance to fully dry hay when rain is approaching.

I would have thought it would be an expensive carry on to bale dry hay just to store it outside, especially with rolls of wrap approaching the equivalent of $200 a roll - good for about 60 bales.

Horses definitely do get fed it in the UK, and most horse owners prefer it, due to it being less dusty, and better quality.

I will get you some pictures of it.

A website with some good information on it: Home

 

[Renze]

Talking to my boarders and other customers I have heard that it's an absolute NO NO for the obvious fermitation reason. I could maybe see someone wrapping horse hay 4-5 days after it has dry thoroughly but I have even been told NO on that. What gives?.

We have used heaped silage for years, even fed them corn silage. They just grew too fat on corn silage.

Now we use wrapped square bales. For horses we like it dry, because of the absence of odour (horse people dont like sour silage smell) but with enough moisture to prevent floating dust.

We use silage for horses, for about 25 years, and have used wrapped bales for about 10 years.
There are many insights on horse feed, but we have our own (?) and the horses do well on it.

Its midnight here in Holland, so i can continue tomorrow

 

[mark.r]

I see a lot of people are feeding it for the lack of dust reason which makes perfect sense. However, and I'll have to ask my boarder, there are some dangers of horses such as colic no?

 

[slowzuki]

Here the different forms of plastic wrapped silage is how most big dairy and beef operations harvest forage. The most popular is 5x5 and 6x5 rolls in tube wrap or individual wrap.

They can't use spikes, they use a smooth grab or an auto bale wagon.

Farmers who do silage feed their horses silage, the horses love it although it takes a bit of a transition at the start, just like going from hay to fresh grass does in the spring.

The plastic prices have sent some people back to pit or bunkered silage, and some silos are back running. Others are cutting back how much they do and using pasture management to extend the time before the cattle come in for the winter.