PHOTO - big silage rake

[DAVID in WALES]

Hi Gang;
One of the local contractors rowing up silage infront of the baler. NH tractor & Claas rake.
David

 

[Coloken]

Here what we call silage is what we put in a pit to ferment. What we bale, we call hay.

 

[hayray]

silage that is baled is called balage, that is what they are doing, you can see the bales that are already wrapped.

 

[Ken Macfarlane]

In lots of areas, including ours near Maine, sileage can be pit or bunkered silage or balage silage.

Balage silage can be individually wrapped or tube wrapped.

 

[Coloken]

OK. But looks like awfull expensive cow feed to me. Silage here is from like, 150 acre corn fields at 30 to 40 ton per acre. Hauled of in twin screw dump trucks. They even gave up the "harvest store" silos as too expensive.

 

[Chad Franke]

Heck Kenny, out at Kuner feedlot they won't let you dump a twin screw dump truck anymore...it's end dump semi's or you don't play...don't even think they will let you unload a live bottom (too slow!)

For those of you not around Greeley Colorado, imagine silage pits 100 yards wide (maybe more) and 1/4 mile or more long, piling 100-150 feet deep, and filling more than one within about 10-15 days when the corn is ready to chop...Choppers running 12 row corn heads, overload permits on all trucks...it's a sight to see...

I imagine balage must be for dairy cows, need higher quality, typically done as pit haylage around here. Silage is cheap (relatively) cow feed, haylage is a higher quality dairy feed.

 

[RodinNS]

Ken,

I think if you looked at the numbers over the long haul that included the cost of the towers or bunkers, and compared it to round bales silage, then it would probably about be a wash. You don't have much up front expense with the bales, and you can also make hay with the baler. Silage wasnt a big tractor, chopper, truck and high dump, and bunkers that all cost money.
The baler will clean a field fast with a medium sized tractor. Probably less fuel goes into the bales... but more plastic which will end up offsetting the cost of the bunker over the long haul.
We did bales for a number of years and switched to chop.... but that was for a more consistent feed quality, and we were also growing mroe corn anyway so we needed the chopper.... and the truck is needed for other things.
Definitely agree on the twin screw truck though. Wouldn't be without it, or the big bore N14 in front of it.

Rod