Corn silage finished in August

[DaleK]

<img src="http://sc.groups.msn.com/tn/E0/E1/CanadianLifeontheFarm/1c/176.jpg">

Finished 45 acres of corn silage today in East-Central Ontario, 6 weeks early. No rain since late June and hardly anything then, hopefully we get the remnants of Katrina tomorrow or else we're in big trouble.

[Ken Scharabok]

When I was in Croatia in 2001 I visited a 5000 capacity feed lot. The cattle (predominately intact bulls) were fed the haylage equivalent of corn as they waited until the stalks had browned out before chopping. I wish I had brought back a small bag of it for protein analysis. Corn kernels in it were definitely dry before chopping. Very little seepage from the open top pit storage.

To this was added spent beer malt and a tad of salt. If they had harvested square baled hay from odd corners some of it might also have been put in the mixer wagon.

Doesn't look like you will get any of Katrina. We got just over 3" in West-central, TN.

[Jennifer L.]

Dale, I'm just across the border from Kingston, ON in NYS. People rushed to get silage cut before Katrina came through just so they'd be able to get in the fields. It's been dry here, as well, but in the last month a few thunderstorms have greened things up a little, and we got 4" of rain from Katrina. The hay crop here was down about 50%, so if this rain sparks a little second cutting I'll be glad.

Hope you have enough forage for your animals this winter. It's no fun counting every load, wondering if it'll get you through the winter.

Jennifer

[DaleK]

Well, we got 1.7". Better than nothing, at least the well came back. 800 tons of corn silage in the bunker so we should have enough feed and it looks like we'll have the soybeans and grain corn all off in September now.