Silage

[Rob30]

Looking for information on silage production. I bought a round baler last year, but I don't think it would pick up damp hay. It plugged up if the hay was not dry enough or if the ground was wet. We had a lot of rain last year. Plus it makes a 5ft bale. I don't think it would work on the individual bale wrappers. Possibly a tuber or inline wrapper.
Would it be easier to start from scratch with another type of silage production. I would only be producing haylage or smalll grain silage. Corn doesn't grow well here.

[DaleK]

Depends what kind of baler you got, it might just be a pickup belt that needs changed or you might have a baler that just won't do the job. My baler isn't a silage special but I've done about 3000 silage bales through it now. Inline wrappers are cheapest in the long run as long as you can feed the bales fast enough to keep them from spoiling.

[Ross]

For sheep the silage system has to be perfect. Round bales work OK but they can be slow to eat it. I've not done any for a while mostly because of this problem. If my bale chopper would handle silage I'd give it another try, or if my NI cutditioner was a 9 footer so it wouldn;t take all day to cut 6 acres........... I'd want the haylage cut short one way or another. I also wouldn't want a 5 foot bale, its just too heavy to move. Easy enough to tie off at 4. Here's what I do. Cut the crop young enough to avoid stalky (plastic tearing stems). Drop it in a swath rather than a windrow so it drops moisture evenly. Rake it when it tests out just under 40%. We have a Preagro 35 moisture tester. Get it baled around 35% and we use a bacterial inoculant sprayed on so it ensiles properly. Stack the bales in a small pyramid stack and cover with heavy black plastic. Bury the edge and patch holes. You have to remove the bales when its cold, and do your best to reseal the stack after each bale.

[fordson major]

there are single bale wrappers as well, saw 3 at a dealer the other day but no clue as to price! neighbor has an agbagger that will be going too auction in april as well as the rest of his equipment. meant for putting chopped silage in a plastic tube or grain silage. large part of silaging is keeping it from spoiling, feed rates have to be ahead of mold and that can be problematic!

[Lazy J]

Baleage and Silage are slightly different due to the moisture content. Silage has a DM content in the 20 to 40% depending on crop type. Baleage needs to be in the 55% range to actually form a bale.

Jim

[GBov]

Have you thought of making a silage pit? I watched our last neighbors - dairy farmers - lay down tarps and then cover them with a mountain of fresh cut grass, cover with more tarps and lots of old tires for weights. When I say a mountain the pile was bigger than our HOUSE!!!

They fed from that "pit" most of the winter.

There may have been more to it than that but thats all we could see.

[Rob30]

I will have to do some more reading on the subject. I would like to find a way to do chopped silage, because I believe the sheep would eat it better.
The pit silage interests me because of the apparent lack of specialized storing equipment. However, I have found it hard to find anyone locally doing it, so I can take a look. I don't think my small flock require a heep of silage as tall as a house. The other problem I have is how to feed it out. I can't imagine scooping it out with the loader without ripping the plastic to peices.

[GBov]

The dairy man using the loader just pulled back the plastic far enough to give him some work room and then pulled it back over the rest.

[fatrat]

Have you tride growing some of the northern flint corns? There are some that will mature within 75 days. They may not produce what a farmer in Iowa would expect but they do mature and produce a decent crop considering the season is so short.

[Lazy J]

The objective of the ensiling process, regardless of silage or baleage, is to ferment the sugars and starches into Lactic Acid. To allow for proper fermentation and quality silage production REQUIRES the exclusion of Oxygen. Keep this in mind when evaluating systems that may work for you.

Jim