i am trying to look into feed supplements for all my critters. i know that there are alot of cowcorn fields in my area used for silage(sp?) what can i build to hold maybe 1 ton of this in the right way?i recall as a kid going into the silo and walking around in there to compact it, love the smell to this day. doesn't it have to ferment to keep for an extended time? thank you for any info, laura cavallari

-- laura cavallari (ladygoat13@aol.com), December 26, 2000

Answers

Do you have access to a yard chipper? If so, you can make your own silage from standing green corn (when the ears reach the milk stage). Chop up the stalks and ears and put them in an airtight container. Those large plastic olive barrels with the screw-on tops would be about ideal. Or you can use two of the highest quality plastic garbage bags you can find. Pack one as full of silage as possible. (Trick I used to use for leaves - put bag in a metal garbage can which has holes punched or drilled in the bottom. This was there is not a vacuum at the bottom to keep the bag from pulling out.) Seal this bag as tight as possible. Now put on a second bag over the first in the opposite direction. Bag will be heavy, so you might have to roll it into a wheelbarrel on its side and then lift both the wheelbarrel and bag. Store out of sunlight.

There were a variety of additives added to silage. Salt or molasses come to find. Ask what the farmers around you use.

Silage is generally put up in mid-summer and then used once grazing declined - at least back when most dairy farms still grazed their cows. Now, in addition to purchased feed, the larger dairies use it year-round.

Some people also make haylage out of slightly wilted grass clippings in the same manner.

When we were on dairy farms in the early 50s, it was my older brother's job to go up into the silo twice a day and pitch down silage. Boy, he hated that, but then he hated just about all work.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 26, 2000.

Laura, Here before winter set in I was in wisconsin at a big dairy. I was amazed that they were making a silage and storing it in the ground. What they had done was to dig out some earth so that three sides were dirt. Now this was a huge site, I don't imagine that your's would have to be as big but I see not why the same principal would'nt work for you.

They dumped their silage in this case alfalfa, thatwas cut the day before then they would compact it with a tractor after each dump load. I asked how much would rot and they said just the top, and they did use it up fast. I was fascinated. They claimed you could do other silage in the same manner. They did cover it with a huge tarplin when done.

I'm not 100% sure but I believe that the compaction is what's most important to silage making.

-- hillbilly (internethillbilly@hotmail.com), December 26, 2000.

Hey Ken, there was a moldy hay question a while back and I thought this then but didn't say nothing but would this be something that could be done with bad hay or say last years big bales then serve with grain to supplement nutrition?

-- Tom (Calfarm@msn.com), December 26, 2000.

Tom:

No good answer from me on your question. Yes, if square bales of hay which were put up too moist were bagged (preferably double bagged) to be air-tight, they should be OK to feed to cattle. Some balers wrap round bales for either silage or haylage. Goats and horses may have a problem with it since they, and sheep, are generally not fed silage, haylage (or moldy hay).

I am a cattle farm, thus my interest is about 99.9% in cattle. For other species, I need someone else to step in here.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 26, 2000.

Here in Minnesota we put-up a lot of silage (chopped corn) and haylage (chopped clover, grasses, etc) as winter feed for the dairy cattle. Silos, which are very expenssive, and bunker's or ground pits are used for storage. Bunker's are generally concrete lined with floors and sidewalls. Ground pits are not as often used because dirt, sand or grit can get into the mixture making it unpalatable to the cattle. More recently area farmers are actually pumping the ground mixture into very large bags which are then sealed. We put the corn up with 50 to 60% moisture content and pack very tight then cover to keep snow and rain off. Haylage is similar although perhaps not quite as wet. We normally put up 150 tons of corn silage and 100 to 125 tons of haylage and supplement that with feeding large bales of hay over the winter months. I would suggest you contact your local ag. extension agent they should have more localized information. Good Luck!

-- Don Barth (djbarth@ecenet.com), December 27, 2000.

Visitors in NZ may have noticed the rather large stockpiles of old car tyres that many farmers appear to keep in their farm yards.

These mountains of tyres are silage stacks. The technique appears to be to stack the silage on the ground then cover with black polythene sheeting and one or two layers of old car tyres. I don't see why one could not do the same with a much smaller stack.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), December 31, 2000.

You can't use moldy hay to make silage -- the mold will already have released toxins which the ensiling process will not get rid of. Use your old moldy hay for compost or mulch. The silage made in the ground, whether covered with just a tarp or with plastic weighted down with tires (common in the USA, too), needs to be in rather large piles. The exterior surfaces will spoil, and if the pile is small, you will lose most of it. On the other hand, the bagging ideas work well for small amounts. Just make sure you are using good quality materials to make your silage out of -- ensiling isn't going to improve the quality of a bad product, any more than making hay out of it would. I haven't fed silage to small stock, but have read that it is fine for them, but not for their whole ration. You could give them a pound or two of silage and a couple of pounds or so of good hay, just not all silage. This is worth looking into further -- I plan to do more research on it, because here in New England it can be hard to get good weather for making hay, so silage may be necessary to allow us to salvage as much of our home-grown feed as possible.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), January 01, 2001.