OT Question about Sileage

[Texasmark]

I see a lot of people making it, but I don't understand how it works. Seems you are cutting green vegetation (corn for one) and putting it up that way.

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

 

[barnrat]

Up in my neck of the woods(Western NY state) we wouldn't be able to farm without silage to much moisture to make good dry hay. Se we put up
Haylage- chopped grass or alfalfa approx. 60% moisture
Corn silage - chopped corn stalks and ear approx 65% moisture
Snap corn - chopped ear corn approx 40% moisture
Baleage -high density round bales wrapped in shrink wrap approx 30-70% moisture
The key to making silage is you need to seal the crop from oxygen in some type of storage device so teh crop can ferment. Upright or tower silos, ag bags or bunker silos are common ways to store hay, corn or snap silage. Baleage has to be wrapped by a special machine that stretches the plastic over the bales. I'll try to get some pics up of the various types of silage and the storage and harvesting equipment that is used to make it.

 

[Mark W.]

Corn silage can spoil but it is most likely to ferment depending on the chemical concentrations. Many fellows put it in silos but many are now using large bunks and silage bags that are packed w/ large pieces of equipment after going through a corn silage chopper. All I know for sure is that our dairy cows love it and will not eat any that has "spoiled."

 

[rrlund]

It has to be finely chopped,packed,repacked and packed some more to get all the air out,then covered with plastic to keep the air out until fermentation has taken place. (about 4 weeks) As for feeding it,just feed it in the feed bunk. Don't anybody give me any "I don't cover corn silage and it only spoils 6 inches". It might look that way,but all university studies have shown that it might look good,but there is absolutely no feed value in the top 3 feet what so ever if it isn't covered during fermentation.

 

[Heat Houser]

Green vegetation, if packed tightly, will go through an anerobic fermentation and will not spoil.
Silage is usually made from corn that has been chopped by a "chopper". This chopper can chop corn or hay by installing the correct head. The chopper blows the chopped stuff into a wagon and it is then hauled to the "silo".
The silo can be as simple as a pit dug into the side of a slope, it can be an above ground "bunker", or it can be an upright silo either concrete stave or glassed steel (Glassed steel is typically a "HarveStor" brand)

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)

 

[Pete in MD]

Silage can be made from corn, alfalfa, various grasses, or cereal grains. The crop is cut green in the field with a forage harvester when it's at the proper stage of growth. The harvester can be self propelled or a pull type behind a tractor.
The harvester blows the silage into wagons or trucks which haul the silage to where it will be stored. Storage can be a pit, bunker, silo, or plastic ag-bag.
When the silage is unloaded it is packed tightly by its own weight or mechanical means so that as much oxygen as possible is forced out. In the absence of air (oxygen) the silage goes through a "pickling" process and becomes stable for long term storage.
Silage can be fed directly to cows or mixed with other feed stuffs in a mix wagon and then fed out. Once a storage device is opened the silgage should be fed on a daily basis so that the "face" is used before it has a chance to spoil from exposure to air.

 

[Allan in NE]

Used to put up 100 acres a year kinda like this feller is doing.

Allan

 

[Fordfarmer]

Hay for silage must be partially dried (around 50-60% moisture) to ferment properly and keep. Corn for silage is usually chopped at 60-65% moisture- when it is mature enough to start drying down on its own, or after frost has killed it so it starts drying. Moisture percentages vary some with different types of storage - upright silos, bunker silos, bags, covered piles, wrapped bales, etc.

 

[El Toro]

All of these postings describe how silage or Ensilage as we called it is chopped and stored.
When I was a teen back in the mid 1940's we didn't have a field chopper. We cut all the corn
by hand and was hauled by wagon to our big silos
where a silage cutter was set up to chop and blow
the silage into the silos. The cutter was belt driven by a 10-20 McCormick-Deering tractor's pulley. We hired extra help since we were all in school at that time. It took several weeks to fill both silos. We had someone in the silo tramping that silage too to pack it down. In 1949 or 1950 there's was man that had a chopper and trucks and did custom silo filling. We had him to do the filling and we put 2 people in the silo for tramping. It only took about 3 or 4 days to fill both silos. Still used the 10-20 on the blower. The cows loved that silage and would wear grooves in the concrete feeding troughs by licking up all the juice from the silage. We fed it to all the dairy cows and to the young stock too, including 2 bulls.

Hal

 

[El Toro]

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

 

[Anonymous-0]

Some farms around here were using a molasses mixed with some type of hardener and it was then sprayed on top of the bunk silos.It then turns into a hardened crust on top of the sileage suppossedly cutting off the oxygen and sealing it.One of the companys put too much hardener in one of my friends molasses tanker trailer and it completely hardened in the truck before he got to the farm.They eveventually had to cut the end off the stainlees steel tanker trailer and cut the 38 foot long tootsie roll out by hand.

 

[kyhayman]

Plant material, be it hay/corn/etc when cut begins to 'rot' or fement in if oxygen is present. This process gives off heat and lactic acid. That why hay 'heats', molds, and has the potential to start fires if this goes far enough. The lower the moisture content the less lactic acid bacteria and the more misc bacteria drive the process.

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.

 

[GeneMO]

It is the same process that makes sour kraut outa cabbage. Little bit different than fermentation, the fresh chopped corn goes through an "ensiling" process where the aerobic (oxygen loving) bacteria use up all the o2 and then the anerobic bacteria takes over and finished the process. If the seal is not broken to let air into the finished product it will keep 3-4 years. Best used that fall, although we did ocassionally carry some over into the next winter. Best feed around if the dollars work out. We liked to wait till the ears were in about soft dough stage. You can get silage too dry and have to add water as you fill the silo. Hope I remembered all my biology term correctly.


Gene

 

[Rich Iowa]

My late neighbor used to chop corn for his beef herd. He had an upright silo but when that filled up he'd make a temp. bunker out of round bales. He'd use the bales as the walls, line it with plastic then proceed to unload and pack with the tractor. I figure this arrangement would work short term, but how well would this idea work for long-term storage, like a year?

 

[Eric SEI]

Corn silage is usually cut about a month earlier than plcking in the late summer.

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.

 

[Texasmark]

Looks like they are getting the job done. I don't have that many "hands" so I have to resort to the other type. Machinery.

Mark

 

[Texasmark]

"Bunker Silo's" Maybe you answered a question that I had about something I saw this year that I never saw before. Due to the weather (stayed wet for a long time, into the summer), it seems a lot of farmers around here took their corn and put it on the ground and covered it with huge (like 100's of feet across) white plastic tarps. There was a big crew that came through with the machinery and all and now that I think about it they were chopping the whole corn plant.....hence sileage. Some of it was green, like I saw some farmers cutting, and some had passed that and had a pretty good brownish hue to it.

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

 

[Texasmark]

Looks like he's getting her done with himself and a truck driver.....probably the wife. Grin.....before she goes to the house to clean it and fix lunch. Course it's nice to have a helping hand when you need it and not have to have one permanently attached....for small operations.

Mark

 

[Texasmark]

Well barnrat, you just answered another question I had. I have a cow calf operation and do my own haying. In the spring I have one heck of a time getting the (1st cutting) hay cured and packaged before more rain (usually).

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

 

[Texasmark]

That was funny, but surely not for them.

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

 

[El Toro]

They're still doing the work like we did it over 60 years ago only we didn't have the corn binder. Those bundles of green field corn have to be heavy to handle. You couldn't feed one of those silage cutters too heavy it took a lot of power to chop & blow that silage into the silos.
They bale hay without a tractor too. Hal

 

[ChrisB]

I never understood the Amish rules and that pictures confuse me even more.

So if you put a donkey in front of technology it makes it OK?

Next we will see Amish airlines with a donkey out in front of the nose-cone.

 

[Texasmark]

There"s a story here somewhere. Now sure where that is. Never thought I"d ever see it gone this far. Who knows, maybe one day that power unit will have drive wheels of it"s own.

Mark

 

[El Toro]

I think this was in Ohio, but the corn binder was filmed in Lancanter county PA. When we had severe droughts and it stunted the corn growth they would cut the soybeans and fill the silos.
They added molasses too and the cows loved it.
Soybeans don't need a lot moisture once they're tall enough to shade the ground and do very well in dry weather. Someone mentioned they use VW diesels in their power units. I don't know what they use for power when filling their silos. I saw them in PA using a big rotary mower with a Wisconsin engine on it, but they had 3 big mules pulling the mower and the driver was 12 or 13 years old. He was mowing the corn stalks off. Hal

 

[El Toro]

I think this was in Ohio, but the corn binder was filmed in Lancanter county PA. When we had severe droughts and it stunted the corn growth they would cut the soybeans and fill the silos.
They added molasses too and the cows loved it.
Soybeans don't need a lot moisture once they're tall enough to shade the ground and do very well in dry weather. Someone mentioned they use VW diesels in their power units. I don't know what they use for power when filling their silos. I saw them in PA using a big rotary mower with a Wisconsin engine on it, but they had 3 big mules pulling the mower and the driver was 12 or 13 years old. He was mowing the corn stalks off. Hal