OT Question about Sileage

When I cut hay and it hasn't cured properly, it spoils and if bad enough will catch fire.

What is the trick on sileage and do you need a special tractor or cutter to put it up?

How do you feed it? I guess that's what you do with it.

Thanks,

Mark

Haylage is often taken as the first cutting in May when natural drying is difficult because of frequent rains. Second, third, and even fourth cuttings for haylage is less common but can be done. Some farmers will put up haylage until their own needs are met, and then switch to hay which can then be sold. Others will put up enough haylage to feed until corn silage is chopped, and switch to hay to feed or sell.

Gene

When we bale hay a race begins in the bale. Until the moisture content drops to a certain level (12-18 percent depending on climate and how tight the bale is) the oxygen using bacteia (aerobic) will continue to grow. They faster the hay sweats if it is above critical moisture the less 'dusty' (microscopic mold spores) it is.

As long as oxygen and water is present in the system bacteria that digest the hay will continue to grow. If oxygen is runs out (plastic, silo wall, bunker silo cover) eventually the lactic acid bacteria will die. Provided enough moisture is present one of two other bacteria begin to grow and consume the lactic acid, not the feed itself. Propionic generating bacteria consume the lactic acid and make 'good silage'. If there is too much moisture and no oxygen butyeric acid bacteria develop, this makes sour silage. These also generate heat so the silage has a rancid butter smell, and brown color with lots of heat damaged protein. It is too wet to ignite on its own, but if dry silage goes in on top of it, or it is over dry silage in an upright silo then fires can start where they touch. Ethanol fermination or sweet silage can occur if oxygen is absent and moisture is too low. It is poorly preserved, but has little heat damaged protein. If oxygen gets in it will almost immediately spoil.

Corn, with its high energy content is the most forgiving silage crop. Lots of food for the lactobacillus. Alfalfa and soybeans with their high calcium content are the most difficult in the calcium counteracts the acid preserving effects of the propionic acid.

Here's the Amish cutting corn for silage. This was taken 2006. Hal

Mark

Mark

• Hobby farm

Hal

Now (January) they are rolling back the tarps and with rubber tired loaders (like you would load an 18 wheel dump truck at a sand pit) are removing it gradually.

So I guess that is what this is is sileage in a ground bunker and they have started feeding it. We have few of the conventional silo's here, due I guess, to the mild winters.

Thanks for that info.

Sure seems like a tricky process to get it right. Seems like with all that bacteria, you could wipe out your herd if you messed up.

Mark

Allan

Mark

With the pit and the bunker, the top 4-6 inches will spoil depending on how well you packed it to keep the air out. (Pack it with a tractor driving back and forth on the silage)

I often wondered how folks in the northern climates could feed their cows when the weather seemed to be wetter for a longer period of time than it is down here. I did notice a lot more silo's up there, so I guess the answer is that they feed sileage that they can put up significantly wetter.

Course the other thing could be that you wait till late summer and only do one crop. I usually get 3 or more if I cut it nice and tender and often. I don't have much land so I have to make my acreage count.

Mark

Of the few silo's around here there is one a few miles from the house with a side panel removed and you can see the sileage stuck in there. Don't know how long it's been there. We've been here 30 years and it was there when we arrived. I can imagine what kind of a mess it would be to try and remove that from the silo. Guess that's why it's still there in it's current condition.

Mark