Silage and chaff vs corn feed. When I had carpal tunnel surgery I had to keep occupied so I played farm sim and never really understood silage. Being wisconsin and having pretty big dairy farms around me some have silage bunkers and other don't. What does fermented silage do for cow food vs grains and corn?
Does compacting it speed up the fermenting?
Round hay bales left out in the field that rot, is the rotten bales considered fermented or did the farmer just have to many bales and its a throw away so its left there instead of moved to dryer location.
Hopefully someone with more knowledge chimes in, but from my (limited) understanding:
Silage is fermented plant matter, and requires the higher moisture content of green/wet plant matter and a limited oxygen supply to make. Grain corn is harvested in much drier state and if stored properly won't rot (which is different than fermenting in that rotting occurs when oxygen is readily available and the moisture content is high).
Grasses & other "hay-making plants" can be turning into silage/haylage if harvested wet and wrapped to keep the moisture in and the oxygen out. Otherwise it too is dried down and turned into hay for long term storage. Since it's not isolated from oxygen it can/will rot if/when it gets wet.
Fermented products can retain more and provide different nutritional value than hay or grains and are usually easier for to digest as they've been partially broken down through the fermentation process.
Feed products that have rotted can contain all manner of fungi and bacteria and as such really can't really be used for feed. Ideally hay should be stored under cover to reduce exposure to the elements and reduce potential for rotting, but storage space isn't always readily available....
I'm also under the impression (perhaps wrongly) that dairy cattle require a higher protein diet than beef cattle, so given the overhead of making silage it's generally not fed to cattle being raised for beef. I would also suspect that beef-cattle only farms/ranches would arise in proximity to large dairy farms just to buy and fatten out the male calves born on the dairy farms leaving the dairy farmers to focus on raising cattle for dairy production.
....again just my understanding from being on the periphery of different types of cattle & farming operations and looking into learning more about the various types of operations should I ever decide to get (back) into some type of agricultural operation.