Silage Question

Meangreen · Oct 7, 2014

What's it used for? I've lived all my life in Iowa and am use to seeing corn harvested off the cob with the stalks being spread out across the field by the combine. In the past few years I have heard of more farmers making silage, but I am unclear as to what it is used for.

Before the sarcastic and off the wall answers, a little history. I have always liked tractors and that is why I have been collecting and working on them the past 10 years. I didn't grow up on a farm, but in a small town so I was somewhat familiar with farming. Wish I had taken some ag classes while in school, but I didn't so I am trying to catch up on my education on this stuff.

Oh yeah, still don't live on a farm, but store my 3 tractors in my garage in a town of about 70,000. Neighbors think they are cool.

paul · Oct 7, 2014

Critters with several stomachs (cattle mostly) use roughage as a big part of their feed.

Putting up dry crops (grain, hay bales) and blending those into a proper feed for them, part energy, part roughage, can be difficult in our weather sometimes.

Making silage of corn or alfalfa can be easier to harvest, and creates a blend of nearly the right amounts of roughage, grain, and moisture for an easy to digest feed. At the least it is much easier to load up and blend and feed day in and day out, with the moisture content it doesn't need grinding and processing every day like grain would.

The negatives are that you are hauling a lot of extra water, and the silage needs to be sealed up to fement properly.

The positives are you are not dependent on good weather, and you don't have to dry grains down.

This is a very brief overview, more details than this of course.

Paul

D Slater · Oct 7, 2014

Probably some new things I don't know about, but back on the dairy farm we used it as one of the cow feeds in the cold months. Cows really seemed like it and anxious to get it. Back then it was a everyday thing to climb into the sillow and through down enough to feed that day.

wisbaker · Oct 7, 2014

To make corn silage the farmer harvests the corn, cob and stalks by chopping them at a higher moisture than the crop would be for grain. The silage is stored in a silo that will allow it to ferment giving it some protection against spoilage. The benefit is the with a corn crop the farmer gets more feed per acre as well as the roughage that ruminant animals need and doesn't incur the extra costs of drying the crop. Other crops can be ensiled like most hays and even small grains. I worked on a dairy in NW Oklahoma and we grew a hybrid Sudan grass we ensiled for cattle feed, occasionally I'd hear about wheatlidge.

notjustair · Oct 7, 2014

We did all of our feeding with sedan (think corn without the ears). We cut and baled it and chopped and also made sileage with it. We weren't using the tall silo by my point, we used the trench silo. Every day we backed the old pickup up there and filled it by hand and then unloaded it by hand into the bunks. We couldn't use the loader tractor unless there was too much snow and even then we had to fork it in by hand because the loader made it too messy and wasted some. I hated doing it at the time, but those are some of my best memories. We left the pickup running with the door open so we could hear KBGB out of Great Bend. Sileage has a very destinctive smell - I love it.

I never realized how pampered our Polled Herefords were - bales, sileage, and grain every day. No mixing tub of course - it was all done in separate areas. My cattle now sure aren't that pampered!

Donald Lehman · Oct 7, 2014

As said below, corn silage is the whole corn plant chopped up. It is stored in a low oxygen environment to facilitate the corn fermenting into a pickled product. It is a high energy/low protien forage fed primarily to cattle. Coupled with good quality haylege or baled hay, which is a higher protein/lower energy forage it forms the base of most cattle rations. Here in the northern NY, growing corn for grain, until hybrid corn came along, was unheard of. The growing season was simply too short.

Alan K · Oct 7, 2014

Its kind of like salad for cows, minus the dressing lol.

Dick2 · Oct 7, 2014

I got a kick out of the neighbor's pigs drinking the juice that leaked out of their cement stave silo after it was fermented. Those pigs would get drunk, stagger around and squeal like I've never heard a pig squeal before!

Pigs may not eat silage, but they sure liked the juice!

Don-Wi · Oct 7, 2014

As with all salads, the dressing is all at the bottom. Whenever we get to the bottom of the silo, it's always a little juicy. Some cows like it, some don't. But they all love the rest of it until you get down to the last foot or so.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Silage Question

Meangreen

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paul

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D Slater

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wisbaker

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notjustair

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Donald Lehman

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Alan K

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Dick2

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Don-Wi

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