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Western OK | first off i know nothing about silage, tried baleage once and it didnt turn out very well. only reason we did the baleage is we had rain comming and had 200+ acres of wheat hay down and wanted to get some out before the rain. theres not alot of silage made around here, only one custom outfit that i know of. friend of mine had some chopped last year and he just pilled it on the ground, didnt cover it or nothing. i think it was hailed out corn. he said it made good feed.
a little bit about our operation- we have the grass capacity to run 160-180 cows. we are light stocked due to the fact we haven't built up completely from the drought and we have rented another place also. we calve in February, ween in mid October, turn out on wheat "hopefully" in the first week of November. then we sell calves after the first of the year 750-800 lbs. our cows winter on grass or milo stalks when handy, supplemented with hay and 20% range cubes. most of our hay is wheat, but we also put up Bermuda and blue-stem hay for starting calves and for calving out heifers. we also depending on the year will buy unworked calves to start and run on wheat, grass, or cover crop and we have also dabbled in feeding cull cows.
i enjoy starting calves and feeding cull cows probably more than just the strait cow/calf. the problems i have with the current way we do it is when feeding(not grazing) it bothers me when the calves leave the feed to go eat hay, even when we started them with squares or loose hay in the trough with feed poured on it for a week or so. it might be just me, the calves that do it look just as good, but it just bothers me. also the hay piles in the lots get to be a mess. we have cows that do the same thing, give them 2-3lbs range cubes every other day out of the pickup and as soon as they see you put hay down they leave the cubes to come eat hay. with our cow herd it doesnt bother me as much cause im not after weight gain, other than the girls about trampling you while your cutting the net off.
sorry for the long winded post, so heres some questions
1) what is the feed value difference between dry wheat hay and wheat silage? what about rained on wheat hay? we have a saying here "wheat hays no good unless it gets rained on once" even though we know thats not true....
2) what is the cost of putting up silage vs dry hay?
3) how long does silage keep out in the open vs dry net wrapped hay?
4) cover crop blend silage?- making it into hay is a pain with the pea leaves falling off and the large bmr stalks
5) feed rations with wheat silage? we have wheat, oats, milo, and have purchased corn this year
6) general info and opinions? what we do works but im always looking for ways to improve
thanks!! |
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Driftless SW Wisconsin | I'm a relative new comer to cattle and certainly in a different climate area than NW OK but I have occasionally hired a few acres of corn silage chopped and bagged and fed over the winter to cows along with hay. Corn silage seems to me to produce more tons of high energy feed per acre than about anything else I could grow. A well-sealed, undamaged bag of corn silage is like an insurance policy against unknown weather, in one way of looking at it. Experienced folks around here tell me it will last a couple years if remains sealed. Cattle are basically ruminants with 4 stomachs for a reason. As much as they might like the silage they still will leave it to go to dry hay or baleage for the majority of the volume of their 2.5% of weight they need to eat per day over the winter. Corn silage is a major undertaking however. I have come to prefer making baleage - inline wrapping wet mixed hay bales. Cows look at this stuff like candy, it is very different from corn silage in that it is roughage more adapted to their internal construction, less "hot" than corn silage and they can internally "fill up" on it. That may be why your calves wander over to the hay. Inline wrapped baleage made with baled mixed pastures of grasses and legumes also seems to provide a wide variety of nutrients. I would think making mixed baleage would be nutritionally preferable to a single crop baleage such as straight wheat, but that's just a guess on my part without any numbers to back it up. Inline wrapping wet bales into baleage also speeds up the hay making process in my often wet-at-hay-making-time climate and about eliminates mold problems and waste as long as plastic is put on right and undamaged. I've taken to rotating cover crops and especially winter rye on ground that I had grow corn for silage. The winter rye grows and is ready to graze a month earlier than my regular pastures and saves at least a couple weeks of feeding hay or baleage in the spring. Grazing the rye in the early spring also lets me delay putting cows on regular pastures, giving the regular grass/legume pastures time to grow a bit more before first grazing, improving their quality for much of the rest of the grazing season compared to grazing to the ground too early and adding hoof compaction on wet early spring pastures. Just some of my observations. What was the problem with your wheat baleage? |
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Western OK | the plastic got holes in it, coyotes, and mice got in it from the bottom. it was slimy and had some mold on it. i fed some of it to un-pregnant cattle but they didnt like it. so we sold it cheap to a guy with a tmr. it was around 30-35% moisture when baled it, but we had never done it before. maybe we did it wrong.
i just dont know between the varmints and the sun degrading the plastic in our hot summers if baleage will work good here. but like i said we might not have done it right.... |
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Driftless SW Wisconsin | I see. I think a good quality (not the cheap imported stuff) with 6-7 wraps should take the sun light and heat but, like any silage, you can't have damage and let air in or you are going to have a slimy, mouldy mess, as you discovered. Ideally baleage should be wrapped within a few hours of when its baled, as my neighbor with the wrapper stresses to me. And should be a bit higher moisture than 30%. I've had better results with bales that are wetter than drier although 35% should work. We wrapped some that must have been about 70% this past late spring. Very heavy bales. But turned out well. That is what is pictured in my recent thread below. Cows love it. Around here most folks use the Sunfilm Gold plastic wrap which stretches, seals and holds up well in sunlight. But you need to address the mouse and varmint holes somehow. I've had a couple varmint holes on top of an inline tube but seal them up with a special tape for the job as soon as I see them. Minimal loss.
Edited by Jim 12/4/2016 11:47
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Iowa | That many cows and backgrounding calves would pay for a $10k tmr pretty fast. Silage rations cheapened up my cow winter inputs by a lot.
My cows eat no hay. Silage, distillers, and straw or cornstalks
Edited by ricksitzmann 12/4/2016 11:50
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whitesville new york | Just curious at what stage you cut the wheat? I have never had varmit issues, just think maybe they were after the grain.
Balage seems to work best for me when it is cut early that the plant is nice and soft. Packs good with little air space. I really like it in the 30-50 % moisture. I put 10-12 layers of 1 mil flavor seal plastic on, the extra plastic is worth every penny IMO being it is tougher to put a hole in it. |
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Western OK | right after it heads.
making dry hay if you don't wait till it heads it will never get dry enough to bale
i've even caught coyotes sleeping on top of the bales, so they scratched at the plastic getting up there. there wasn't any grain in it. i just think the rats and mice were looking for a warm spot. |
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Rome, KS | Most custom silage operators have a minumum charge of $65/acre. That's on an 8 ton minimum. Plus you're going to have swathing and probably merging on top of that. You need to be able to keep air out of your silage pile. Cover it with plastic and cover the plastic with tires. If you don't it dries out quite a ways down and then when it rains it soaks in that far. I've seen 16 foot tall uncovered bunkers here become complete s(*t here after one summer, but the guys cows ate it all the next winter so he thought it was ok. Doesn't realize how much value has disappeared from the feed. |
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Faunsdale, AL | General rule of making hay or haylage from small grains is to either cut in the boot stage for a premium high protein lower fiber feed (at reduced yield per acre) The cut crop usually needs wilting to get moisture in an acceptable range for silage/balelage. As you have said sometimes it is very hard to get the crop cut before heading to dry for making dry hay.
Or wait until the soft dough stage when energy and dry matter per acre have peaked (fiber content will be much higher and protein much lower). Moisture can be perfect for direct cut silage with no wilting......or it is easy for the crop to get too dry for good fermentation if there is any delay in harvest.
In between, you get a high fiber, low energy, low protein feed. Closer to boot it is higher protein, high fiber feed. Closer to dough it will be a higher energy high fiber feed. |
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Southern Indiana | Any kind of baleage will bring critters and varmints if it is placed in remote areas. I've tried flashing lights, motion sensor plastic owls, and pie tins tied to a t post and this year has been my most successful. Still went through a lot of duct tape and need to find some kind that is UV resistant. I've never made wheat hay but have made oat baleage and would not do it again unless I have some way of grinding it. The longer it is the more they waste and my cows wasted an incredible amount. Probably a third. They pull out a mouthful and whatever is dropped on the ground stays on the ground. They don't waste grass hay which is just as long nearly as bad. Don't know why. But with all the problems of baleage (which there aren't really all that many) I would never go back to trying to make all dry hay. |
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western iowa,by Denison | you could buy a cheaper jd chopper-3960-70 and hay head then a simple dump wagon and just try it-theres not much to them but basic machine operation-chop couple loads and build from there-really like mowing and chopping 12 hours later-sometimes if the crop is fairly dry you can chop right away |
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Western OK | Do you think it would produce a better feed? Less overall cost? How would you store it? How long would it keep? |
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western iowa,by Denison | you would be able to answers those questions as you experiment chopping-there is lots f good advice in forage magazines-and lots of reading material if you look in old papers from 60-70's
all depends on the operator and your goals
sorry to be vague-no one operator is the same
sharp knives-pack silage and adjust-lot of times you can put a silage package together in the $5-$10,000 range to try
we have seen silage 14 years old still good-have seen Mr Know It All chop and ruin silage in 3 months |
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feeding silage vs hay and general questions
