Silage production

[Rob30]

What methods of making silage do you use? I don't mean the 45 gallon drum full, I mean medium scale production.
I have watched my neighbour make silage this week. The couple cut and stored about 150 acres in 3 days. They have a fancy system, cost $250 000.
I have a small loader, square baler, rake, and a haybine now. I could find a deal on forage havester.
The question is how do I store it with out a silo or bale wrapper. There must be some low input methods.
I feed cattle, meat goats, and sheep. All would do well on silage.

[ksfarmer]

We used to put up sorgum silage in an open stack. Packed by driving tractor over the pile. This was about 20 to 25 acres worth, some years made a nice big pile. A better method is to use a trench silo, less spoilage on sides of the pile this way. Either way, the secret is to do a lot of packing.

[DaleK]

We use two bunker silos for corn silage. Ours are cement but for smaller amounts you can use wood or dirt and cover it with plastic. We hire it done, can't afford to keep our own harvester and wagons going even when we're doing 100 acres of corn a year.
For our hay we have a round baler and an inline wrapper, we bale and wrap 800-1000 bales a year.
We used to do haylage in the bunkers too but as we expanded we decided to use the silos for strictly corn, haylage is harder to pack and doesn't work as nicely in bunkers or stacks as corn.
Ask them if they would harvest it for you. You can find cheap harvesters and wagons but harvesters are high-maintenance. You might be able to get a round baler and rent a wrapper when you need it depending what's available in your area, that's how we started before we bought our own.

[sammyd]

Would it be worth it?
Silage will eat more fuel than baling. More equipment to buy. Can your tractor run a chopper with a wagon full of haylage...takes some HP.
Choppers always seem to be pretty high maintenance....knives that get dull, chipped, worn out, shear bars, gearboxes shredding themselves, and the infamous rock tearing the pan out under the knives.

If you're not going to use a silo or bag you'd better think about spoilage and how much you can lose to it.
A pile or bunker will work, but you're leaving a bit more stuff in a position that can be exposed to air. Even bags will tear or be ripped by animals causing spoilage.

The fastest way is not always the best if not done properly.
I grew up on a farm that made silage.. both hay and corn. It was a treat when we put up the 20x70 and could put more first crop in the silo instead of bales or in the neighbors old silo I had to fork out daily.
I think trying to get by on the cheap wouldn't work well with silage.

[scorpian5]

regular hay works best for almost everything but dairy animals. like the others said it costs way to much to buy the equipment and still a small fortune to hire it done. we used to bag first crop hay but it cost about $2000 a bag and unless you have a way to feed it easily like a bobcat and feeder wagon they are a pain

[sammyd]

Our Holsteins made huge fat numbers on baled hay and grain. But total production raised on silage and pounds of milk is the bulk of the paycheck.
If I was running dairy cows now I would bale everything. But any big rounds or squares would be kept in a shed. And regardless of the work involved, I think I'd stick with small squares as long as I could.

[Ross]

The poormans silage system that works (unless you've got some back up machinery) is round bale silage, especially if you have a sprayer to add bacterial inoculant. I have to stress the stacked or wrapped bales must be .....100% air tight You can make a pile and cover it with black plastic and bury the edges, it works well, but you must inspect frequently (3-4 times a week) to ensure there's no tears in the plastic. It also has to be made very quickly. You could make piles of similarly piled haylege but the success rate drops. On the plus side the effort saves alot of suppliment grain.

[Jackpine Savage]

Probably 10 years ago or so a few guys here in MN (rotational graziers) were experimenting with direct chopping using a flail chopper, piling it, covering with plastic, and then using a vacuum pump to suck out the air. I guess it's common practice in New Zealand. They were importing the choppers from there. It was high moisture 70-80 percent. As far as I know all of them have given up on it. It tended to freeze solid, time and labor to cover, and didn't scale up real well.

We liked baleage as well and used an inline wrapper.

[Ross]

The Lacerator i think it was called. A cheap green chopper if nothing else. They use similar systems in Europe, Krone makes a chopper/wagon like the Buckton wagon the Lacerator used, to drop a pile of chopped silage. I guess the system could be debugged with practice. Looked slower than baling and wrapping.

[artificer]

You've gotten good input from others. A few more things to consider.

What is your feed-out rate going to be? You need to have a small enough exposed feed face, so you feed out faster than spoilage can occur. This is part of the silo/bunker/pile design.

Since you have a loader, you can use that to feed with. Is it reliable? An old relic? If you go this route, you're feeding system has to work, even in the middle of winter. Since you're in Ontario, this is a definite concern. With bales, worst case scenario is you get help to haul them down/feed them.

How much acreage do you want to put up? Are you having problems with the bales now? Is there a specific reason you want to go with silage, other than the ease of harvesting? (NOT a minor concern...)

IF you have the equipment, silage/haylage can let you harvest more acres with the same amount of people. You're just substituting equipment/capital costs for labor costs. There are a few drawbacks, however. If you bale at the proper moisture, bales are fairly foolproof. Don't let them get rained on, don't stack them too wet, and they're good feed. Silage, on the other hand, takes knowhow and management to get right. It's much easier to mess up, and have bad feed. You can make some very good feed, and it'll go bad if you don't store it right.

If you're really interested in how to properly make silage, do your research. One place to get recommendations on silo/bunker/pile design, and the requirements for packing/density is Dr. Richard Muck of the Agricultural Research Service. Your tax dollars at work. Dr. Undersander of the Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison is also a good person to google for silage info.

If you find you really want to go for it, and need some additional help, drop me a line at michael.boettcher@ars.usda.gov and I'll try to point you in the right direction (or at least what I think is the right direction is... )

[Jennifer L.]

Some people individually bag round bales for small numbers of animals. You are supposed to be able to reuse the bags two or three times if you are careful with it. I've never done it, but my neighbor has done some.

Jennifer