Kickinbull
Member
Can I keep silage fresh in bunk/trench or pile for 10 cows feeding 150 days?
- Thread starter Kickinbull
- Start date
johnofnewhaven
Well-known Member
I work for a guy in highschool and he piled up sweet corn silage outside. Don't remember how long it lasted but we feed off it for several months. Someone on here will know better than me.
Kickinbull
Member
My goal is to find a way to quit buying grain to keep cattle in condition thru winter.
Please remember that corn silage is about 70% moisture so 25 pounds has 7.5 pounds of dry matter. The point is those cows can get quite cold eating all that wet energy. Mix it 1 part corn silage with 3 parts good quality dry hay and 1 or 2 parts ground cornstalks. Free choice protein blocks and loose high calcium mineral and loose salt. Do you have access to distillers dried grains? Those people will help with a ration to help them move the DDG's. I used this formula on 180 beef cows for many years.
showcrop
Well-known Member
It depends on how big your face is and how airtight the top and sides are. You want to be removing some from your face everyday so that it is not exposed to the air for more than a day or two. So if you have yet to build your bunker, just make it long and narrow with airtight sides and you can do it. You can get pretty exact specs by projecting how many cubic yards per day you will be feeding.
Farmer Ron
Member
I think that would be possible assuming it would be in the cold winter months using a long pile/bunker and narrow exposed face so you could remove 6-12 inches a day. When the weather warms up in the spring you likely won't be able to keep ahead of the spoilage. Proper packing and moisture is critical for sucess.
Roger Tomfohrde
Member
From experience a 14 diameter silo 45 feet tall would feed an average of 25 head a year on corn silage. In the summer you had to feed faster to keep up so it would not spoil.Thinking it was 3-6 inches a day between the two feedings. We also supplemented with ground ear con and a small portion of Oats with soybean meal and minerals. In the winter spoilage slows way down. I am wondering if this is corn silage or haylage. A wooden corn crib(less spoilage) and ground ear corn and dry hay is probably how to do it but I wonder how small a bag can be made for silage. You may be able to seal it tight enough to make it work. Interesting thoughts for the small scale.
Roger Tomfohrde
Member
I should have mentioned half of those cattle were dry cow/heifers and we fed one side of the bunk to fatten cattle with the extra corn.
gene bender
Well-known Member
keeping it fresh will be the problem rain and snow and hot sun are not kind to good silage.
Well I ran the numbers and even if you upped the cows to a 50% hay ( 230 lbs.)/50% corn silage ration you would only be feeding 500 LBS. per day. (I am assuming you meant corn silage) This is with corn silage at 65% moisture. So it would be very hard for you to keep ahead of spoilage when only feeding that small of an amount. You might be able if the temperatures stayed under 35-40 degrees. Even then the silage would dry out which effects palatability so the cows would waste it when eating.
You would be better to think about individually wrapped hayledge bales. This would get you the energy/protein your currently using grain for. 10 cows would eat smaller hayledge bales fast enough there would be little spoilage.
One thing to think about is, pound for pound shelled corn/ground corn, is cheaper then silage or hay in the limited amounts your feeding.
You would be better to think about individually wrapped hayledge bales. This would get you the energy/protein your currently using grain for. 10 cows would eat smaller hayledge bales fast enough there would be little spoilage.
One thing to think about is, pound for pound shelled corn/ground corn, is cheaper then silage or hay in the limited amounts your feeding.
Al Baker(pumpman)
Member
Genetics are cheaper than silos or bunkers. Just bring in a good bull who doesn't need grain to hold his condition. In a few years you will have young cows than only need good dry hay and minerals, plus salt. Just breed in a better blood line. Good beef cows don't need grain. I have not fed grain in over 20 years and live up in the great white, and cold North. Al
Kickinbull
Member
Thanks JD for reply. I came to same conclusion. We?re in SC KY so it doesn?t stay cold enough. My small NH 630 hay roller doesn?t handle higher moisture hay.
Kickinbull
Member
Al, I?ve already started with different genetics. It?ll be a couple years to breed into it.
Kickinbull
Member
Thank you all for reply?s. These are dairy cows that I?m raising calves on in summer. I started breeding to beef couple years ago. Mostly getting bulls so build a herd is slow.
Traditional Farmer
Well-known Member
- Location
- Virginia
Agreed, feeding grain to a cows is a looser especially at today's prices.There are farms here in Virginia that stockpile grass and feed very little hay in the Winter.
caterpillar guy
Well-known Member
Bags can cut them off at anytime during the filling. So from the full length to only 20 feet if you want. It just wastes more of the bag as it requires enough to tie off the first end then we used to wind the end up with 2 boards nail together then cover with dirt to hold it. Later on we just put dirt on the end to seal it.
rockyridgefarm
Well-known Member
Are there any baggers available for rent near you? You would struggle to keep the feed fresh on a larger bag, but the Amish and Mennonites around here have 5 and 6.5 foot baggers for their smaller herds. It would obviously not be worth paying 25,000 for a bagger, but if you could rent one, they get $5 per ton plus the cost of the bag.
BarnyardEngineering
Well-known Member
- Location
- Rochester, NY
Sounds like a perfect application for an ag bag to me.
ChasK
Member
He said they are dairy cows that he raises calves on. They give more milk. How I do it, is 4 calves the first 8 weeks, then 3 calves. If she's still milking well enough she will get another 3 before I drop to 2. I try to average 12 calves raised per cow per year. That won't happen w/o a little grain.
Determined
Well-known Member
Sure in a perfect world.
Get a drought year when hay yield is low cows still need to eat.
Cant buy $100 a bale hay and afford to eat myself.
Hard pressed for a cow to eat enough hay to handle a month worth of minus 30 to minus 40 weather without loosing some condition.
Feeding some grain will help get them through the weather.
Economics come into play.
You can swath and bale a mature oat crop and get some nice 1800 lb bales that will cost you less than the lighter $100 hay bales will.
Depending on what the feed test results are typically I can shred an oat bale on top of a shredded barley straw bale and end up with a good ration.
2 days of feed for our cows;
-2 1250 lb hay bales
-3 900 lb barley straw bales
-3 1800 lb Oat bales
In the real cold weather I back the straw down to 2 bales and up the oat bales to 4.
Feed test results and a good cattle nutrition calculator program and you can work whatever feed available to you into an adequate economical ration to keep the girls is shape for calving.
It also calculates what adjustments need to be made to the minerals to balance everything out.
I'd try it,but go as narrow as you can. I feed year around out of my bunker. It's 30 feet wide and it takes me a week to work my way all the way across it,that includes 90 degree weather in the summer. Pack it good and cover it. Getting it put up right is the key. It keeps better than haylage.
Destroked 450
Well-known Member
- Location
- Harned, Ky
We tried silage once but it wasn't right for our operation, trench silo long before bags came out.
Although it's true that most cows don't need any grain there are benefits to feeding them a little.
We have a small creep feeder on one farm for the calves, they will weight a little more than the calves from the other farm that doesn't have a creep feeder. Those calves are also much calmer and easier to work because they're used to being near you.
A few buckets of ground corn feed to the cows every once in a while keeps them accustomed to you and makes working them much easier. If I take a bucket of feed and call the cows they'll come running and I can lead them right into the working pen.
We do have an advantage in that we have a old no-til corn planter, corn picker, grinder-mixer and a place to store ear corn, all that have long been paid for. We only plant a few acres of corn for feed so the cost is minimal.
Animals just like us like a little change in the menu at times, our cows come running when I head to the bunk feeders with buckets in my hands.
Digging back deeper in my memory,Dad had a 20x40 bunker built out of poles and 2x6 treated center match. He fed 16 dairy cows in a stanchion barn out of that and never had a problem. He took it out with a fork every day,put it in potato crates,carried it in the barn and dumped it in the mangers. If he got away with 20 feet wide for 16 cows,I'd think 14-16 foot wide for 10 cows would work.
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