Hay/silage question

[art]

There is silage which is with corn, and haylage which is with hay. Bunk storage is the most economical way to store the feed and with the bunk style the farmers can cut it longer so the cows can chew it longer increasing the butter fat content in the milk.

 

[N80]

You can also make haylage with bale wrappers if you want it in smaller, portable packages. Hay wrappers can wrap a full sized round bale.

When I was in a rural area in Germany they did the haylage thing with plastic held down with tires. Stunk to high heaven. Not a nasty smell, but you couldn't get away from it.

 

[daTeacha]

It's pretty common around here for farmers to "chop" the hay, especially first cutting, and feed it directly to the cattle. Later on, it gets put into either bunker siloes or on ground plastic tube siloes about 10 or 12 feet in diameter. There is a special machine that stuffs the tube like making sausage except the machine moves and the tube just grows along the ground 'til they start another one. Much cheaper than vertical siloes and you don't need to worry about the silo unloader breaking down, someone working in the thing getting killed by silo gas, someone drowning in the silo, etc.

I do something similar when I mow the lawn and bag the clippings for the sheep to eat, but on a "slightly" smaller scale.

 

[AKfish]

Ahhh... the robust aroma. The crusty texture. The deep, dark brown liquid.

Must be silage.


Spent a couple of year's feeding steers in a feedlot for a local farmer near Benson, Minn. My uncle had a small (380 acres) edible bean farm (pintos, great white northern beans, red beans, etc.) and worked with this fellow who farmed several thousand arcres and finished out 500-1,000 head of cattle every year.

Used a large skid-steer to break out the silage and load feed wagons with. Great fun for a SD college kid.

AKfish

 

[BigMccorm]

The giant piles your talking about are actually bunker silos. They pile the silage on the ground and pack it really tight. Those monster tractors you saw more than likely have blades on the front and packing tires. As more silage is added to the pile the tractors push the pile up and even it out and pack it down at the same time. We don't use this method. We put ours in bags. Its a 9' diameter thick plastic bag that the silage is packed into. I have spent many many years loading those bags.

The difference between silage and grass clippings is that the silage is treated with a preservative that keeps it viable longer. Those grass clippings are also not packed very tightly....i would imagine. By packing the silage tight it doesn't allow for the circulation of air so it is more difficult for mold to form.

Besides doing this on our farm at home, we just talked about it in my Forage Crop class down at Ohio State.

 

[mjarrels]

Dairy farms around here put it into large vertical silos... nothing on the ground unless a bunker yield. Most farmers will be planting corn over the next couple weeks.

mark

 

[scott_vt]

Later on, it gets put into either bunker siloes or on ground plastic tube siloes about 10 or 12 feet in diameter. There is a special machine that stuffs the tube like making sausage except the machine moves and the tube just grows along the ground 'til they start another one.

Afternoon Rich,
I have seen those big sausage links not far from here !

When I was a kid I remember climbing up into the big vertical silos to pitch fork a bunch of silage down the chute. I remember how that fermentation would get you a bit high, and then how to get back down the chute clinging onto those wet slippery rungs ! Ahh memories !

 

[mjarrels]

Scotty,

BTDT... use to ride my bike over to a local dairy and feed cattle for 35 cents a day... of course 35 cents back than would go a long way. Bottle of pop was a about 8 cents and candy bars were a nickle.

mark

 

[scott_vt]

Scotty,

BTDT... use to ride my bike over to a local dairy and feed cattle for 35 cents a day... of course 35 cents back than would go a long way. Bottle of pop was a about 8 cents and candy bars were a nickle.

mark

Afternoon Mark,
Yep, we would ride our bikes down town to buy a cherry coke from the fountain, I think they were 15 cents but the old memory aint what it used to be !

 

[stevevdw]

There are a couple reasons farmers farmers chop the grass & make haylage instead of drying it for hay. First of all you can harvest your crop in a shorter amount of time when it's at peak protein. You are not as weather dependant for drying. Chopping hay is much faster & less labor intensive than making hay out of it all. Today's huge dairy herds need big amounts of forage, a big pile is the most economical way to store it. Some guys put preservatives on the stuff when they chop it, some don't. There is a small amount of spoilage on the top & sides but minimized by packing the stuff with a tractor. Most of the spoiled stuff is mixed & blended w/the rest of the feed & the animals don't seem to notice it. You can handle it with a FEL & eliminate hand labor involved with square bales when feeding. We used a bunk silo for years & could clean off 100 acres a day with much smaller equipment than the big guys use today. I'm sure a custom operator could do 100's of acres a day today.