[uncle Will in In.]

Dairy farmers here at one time chopped their hay as it was cut chopped and blown into the wagon by the same machine. It was called grass silage. It was stored in either upright or bunker silos. The bunker silos used a heavy tractor running back and forth on top the stack continualy to press out the air the same as they done with corn silage. They were doing this before haylage was a consideration. With the use of glass lined silos it was found that chopped hay could be stored with a lower moisture content than grass silage, and it made a much better feed. Soon the farmers were putting haylage into there concrete upright silos. To harvest haylage for bulk storage in silos or the long loaf type bags, it needs to be chopped to run through the augers and blowers used to handle it. The hay is mowed and and left in windrows on the ground for a day or so until the moisture content gets down enough. From the windrows it is chopped and stored. It has been getting more common for the the haylage to be rolled into round bales instead of being chopped. The haylage bales are put on a wrapping trailer that tightly wraps plastic around the bale as the rollers turn the bale so it is tightly wrapped on all sides. These can be stored outside and fed one at a time as needed. These are popular with the smaller farmers who can't justify the expense the goes with silos and the equipment to fill them and feed out of them.