What is "silage"

[Southern by choice]

I am completely ignorant to all things cattle. What exactly is silage? I was talking to a neighbor (he brought me some hay) and he was talking about the round bales that are wrapped, something about fermenting them for silage. (My bale is not wrapped just cut and baled.) He raises Black Angus.

 

[SheepGirl]

Silage is pretty much the entire plant when it's harvested and it gets put into a silo or dark place to ferment. It's primarily fed to dairy cattle. Have you ever driven by a farm and seen the white with black tires on top? That's silage.

 

[Southern by choice]

thank you, I was reading it is mostly fed to cattle and sheep. Not goats though, I thought sheep and goats were very similar.

 

[Queen Mum]

Chaff hay which is sold in bales is silage with a commercial name tag on it. It is quite good for the goats. But you must make sure it is true silage. And has no mold in it. Good silage is very nutritious.

 

[BrownSheep]

Ah silage, I live in silage country. They generally uses chopped corn around here and pile them in huge pits...which is more like huge hills. Or just on the ground forming hills. They then pack it using backhoes by driving all over it. They then tarp it. Over the course of 5 or 6 months the bacteria in the pit digest aka ferment it. Cow LOVE it because of the alcohol content in it. It can actually stink a little or a lot. We've fed it to our sheep and they enjoyed it. Google silage pit and it will show the pits and packing process. The picture with the two tractors on the hill is actually a local dairy Im familiar with.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

Silage is chopped forage that has been fermented by anaerobic bacteria in a silo, a pit or enclosed in a plastic wrap. We convert barley into silage up here, and yes, the cattle DO love it!!

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Yeah, when we moved out to the sticks from the city, I remember the day I first encountered silage being made. I was driving to work and was like WHAT IS THAT NASTY SMELL! People at school just laughed and made city-girl comments. I don't think it smells anymore but it was definitely different.

 

[Queen Mum]

Where I come from silage is made from hay. Pure hay. With lactobacillus Acidopholus added.

 

[Southern by choice]

Just googled it Those pits are huge! So do the cows get drunk off the barley silage?
One day I would like a cow when we have more land. I think I'll spend some time reading in the cattle section. Our Vet/neighbor lent me a book called The Family Cow- it is very old, maybe I should start reading it. I find them to be amazing creatures.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

Just googled it Those pits are huge! So do the cows get drunk off the barley silage?

Nope. The "cows" (our steers, rather) simply got fat and grew very well on it. The pile that we would make is considered small compared to most operations. One pile we made was around 100' long x 25' wide x 60' tall. We use what is called a forage harvester that picks up the swaths of barley and chops it up into 1/2" bits which is blown into a wagon or a truck that's being driven alongside the harvester. Once full, it's dumped against the pile itself. Then when we've done around 7 to 8 loads we'd get the big dual-wheeled tractor to pile up these piles and pack down the pile to get all the air out. This would continue until the field was all cleaned off. Once the pile is really packed down as much as possible, we'd put silage plastic over top and around the pile, then putting tires and hay bales on and around the pile to hold the silage plastic down and add weight to the pile as well. The plastic MUST surround ALL of the pile otherwise there will be spoilage. Usually silage is ready to be fed within three to four weeks after being packed and piled together, but we never started feeding until 3 to 4 months later, when the snow would stick and stay on the ground.

Air is the determinant of spoilage in silage. If there are air pockets in a silo, bunker or pile or silage, the silage in and around that pocket will spoil, turning into a black/brown slimy gunk that the animals will not eat. The brown stuff stinks worse than the silage itself.

It's fun both climbing up the pile and sticking your arm down into the pile as far as you can. It's surprising how fast the fermentation/anaerobic activity happens; literally immediately once the forage is chopped and piled into a pile. I couldn't stick my arm very far past my elbow because it soon started getting VERY hot to the touch in that pile.

We never have to add any sort of bacterial culture to help with fermentation because it's in there already. We don't do hay because alfalfa is a poor choice of forage to be used for silage; it's because of its stems which are too thick and coarse to be able to, well, ferment as easily as grasses like hay grasses or other cereal grasses are such as corn, barley, oats, etc.