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NW Iowa | The first weekend in December, I bagged just short of 20 tons of a wet distiller/cornstalk mix for my winter/spring feed (76% wet distillers, 18% corn stalks, and 6% liquid protein). This was the first time running a bagger, so that was a little education, plus I think I could have got by with fewer cornstalks in the mix, as the bag turned out kind of lumpy on top. I also probably should have processed the stalks for better packing – I was happy with the cut length from the knife rolls last year on the bales and did not process them going directly into the feeder wagon to the cows, this year, the stalks didn’t seem to be cut up as nicely. If this works out well, I will probably do this again next year. The bag is sitting right next to my silage pile.
A couple of reasons for me doing this – I have been running over to my FIL’s feedlot (ends up being about a 2.25 mile round trip for me) with the feeder wagon every Saturday or Sunday morning for the past couple of years when they are doing morning chores to load distillers and liquid protein. Works ok, but I always need to block out an hour or so every week on the weekend to get this done. Once I get back with the feeder wagon, I will end up mixing up a week’s worth of ration for the cows (usually ends up being 2 feeder wagon loads). If I am feeding the calves at the same time, the majority of it ends up sitting on the ground (I’ll load a 2 day ration for the cows or calves and only actually mix 1 load/day) while I switch back and forth. I am hoping that this will result in fresher feed and reduce the spoilage/loss that I’ve seen. And only having a few cows makes getting and using a full load of distillers fairly difficult.
I haven’t had to dive into it yet, but should be interesting when I do. I’ll try to post an update once I get into it if anyone wants to see how it turned out…
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Bagging Feed in December
