Rye silage bales moldy

[randallin Mo]

I baled 89 rye silage bales this past summer and wrapped them for silage bales. They weigh 1400 pounds each and are wrapped well. The bales have a lot of white mold throughout. The moisture is approximately 60 percent. The rye was too mature when it was baled due to wet conditions preventing me from cutting sooner. I am REALLY disappointed as this is the first time I've had bad luck with silage bales. My guess is that the sugar content was too low (due to maturity) to enhance proper fermentation. I suppose my main question is will this mold hurt the cows. The cows eat it, but you have to make them. Within any given bale, probably 50% is molded, with the balance good. What would you do?

 

[mike321]

Not wet enough to support fermentation. If you plan on baling dry hay and it becomes to tough (damp) to bale then you cant just wrap it. It has to be wetter than that, I learend the hard way to. What type of baler did you use? My bales were made with a NH baler and not tight enough. To much air gets in.

 

[kyhayman]

I'd feed them, let them eat what they want. Usually that white mold without green or brown colors is a sign of too much oxygen.

My guess is the combination of relatively high moisture and the higher fiber concentration plus the maturity level makes the bales more bulky, i.e. they have more air trapped in the bale. I've run into this in rye and soybeans that got too mature. Cows ate it and did well on it, they just didnt like it as much.

 

[randallin Mo]

Thanks for the replys. The bales were baled with a (new) New Holland round baler. I baled orchard grass/alfalfa silage bales the day after these and had no problems. The cows are eating the rye, but as kyhayman said, they sure don't like it. I"ve starting feeding them outside without rings..allowing the cows to eat only what they want. The balance will be good manure later on. My concern was the mold being detrimental to the cows. It just REALLY goes against the grain to feed my cows "junk". Of course, the cows consider anything other than alfalfa to be junk. I'm an old dairyman converted to cow/calf man. It's hard to break old habits.