How are you fixed silage wise?

moy83

bob charles wrote: »

there will be a pile of hay saved when the day comes

Did you say in another thread that you bought hay early on. when lads were talking about this magic day and having loads of grass . A good move id say :-)

bob charles

moy83 wrote: »

Did you say in another thread that you bought hay early on. when lads were talking about this magic day and having loads of grass . A good move id say :-)

Nah not me, the day to buy is when everyone is going in the opposite direction.

If the land was dry now underfoot I would consider it magic day. I have a frightening amount of feed used in the last 2 months, and cattle are coming back indoors again.

Muckit

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

162 bales in. 118 of which came off 7 acres!!

Had he the knives sharpened at all on that baler!

Muckit

foreman450 wrote: »

When we get the weather contracters will be up the walls. You will bale when they tell you to bale.

I dunno, I'm probably very lucky. I have two contractors I use, one for pit and one for bales and slurry. Both of them come when I want them and I mean down to the hour.

The phone works two ways also which I like and appreciate alot.

restive

I will cut today. Monday promised good.

reilig

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

118 of which came off 7 acres!!

Over 16 bales to the acre :eek:

And you guys slag me about wilting my silage properly. The heaviest of meadows around here would only average 10 bales to the acre when wilted (And I mean "lying on the ground heavy").

josephsoap

reilig wrote: »

Over 16 bales to the acre :eek:

And you guys slag me about wilting my silage properly. The heaviest of meadows around here would only average 10 bales to the acre when wilted (And I mean "lying on the ground heavy").

I'd imagine the DM% of those bales would be very low.

reilig

josephsoap wrote: »

I'd imagine the DM% of those bales would be very low.

The drier it is, the higher the DM %. I try to wilt to 35 - 40 % if I can. It makes for more silage per bale and the silage is better preserved (less mould) than lower DM bales.

grumpyfarmer

reilig wrote: »

grumpyfarmer wrote: »

118 of which came off 7 acres!!

Over 16 bales to the acre :eek:

And you guys slag me about wilting my silage properly. The heaviest of meadows around here would only average 10 bales to the acre when wilted (And I mean "lying on the ground heavy").

It was mowed Sunday with the the pit Silage, was caught on the ground for the day on Monday with the rain was tedded out Tuesday in excellent drying conditions and rowed up and baled Wednesday with out any more rain... so i reckon they could have been alot worse.. the bales are solid and well packed but not overly heavy, the contractor was only going at walking speed using a welger rp 235 xtracut.. still bringing them in today cos couldn't go near the field yesterday and no sagging at all.. can't say the same for the crows tho....

josephsoap

reilig wrote: »

The drier it is, the higher the DM %. I try to wilt to 35 - 40 % if I can. It makes for more silage per bale and the silage is better preserved (less mould) than lower DM bales.

Yes wet bales could have a DM content as low as 16% :eek:

I like wilted silage to with around 22-25% DM

Do you use a haybob to spread the grass ?

snowman707

reilig wrote: »

The drier it is, the higher the DM %. I try to wilt to 35 - 40 % if I can. It makes for more silage per bale and the silage is better preserved (less mould) than lower DM bales.

you will get more silage per bale but I think the longer the grass is on the ground it is losing feeding value,

I don't anything about DM% but I do know what kind bales my cows will milk best off, especially if we introduce buffer silage in times of grass scarcity or poor weather

as you mentioned with your sucklers quality isn't one of your top priorities but our case is different I consider baling an expensive method of saving fodder and to be cost effective i need to get top quality with minimum labour and diesel cost.

we usually mow at about 30 days.. at most grass would had 30 unit of N, leave over night, following day we throw 3 swaths into 1, leave a couple of hours and bale

if the weather is any way fine we get adequate wilt because of the light crop. Usually about 7 + or - bales per acre

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

The drier it is, the higher the DM %. I try to wilt to 35 - 40 % if I can. It makes for more silage per bale and the silage is better preserved (less mould) than lower DM bales.

haylage

reilig

Muckit wrote: »

haylage

I'd consider haylage to be at least 50% DM

Angus4life

reilig wrote: »

Over 16 bales to the acre :eek:

And you guys slag me about wilting my silage properly. The heaviest of meadows around here would only average 10 bales to the acre when wilted (And I mean "lying on the ground heavy").

i think its square bales he made :p:p

grumpyfarmer

Maybe i should also state that for Silage we put out 3000 gls of slurry 3 bags of sulfa can and 2 bags of 0-7-30 per acre...

Muckit

one of the paddocks taken out. First year to do it. I'm a 'virgin-paddock-taker-outer'


Meadow. Should have been cut a week ago, don't get me started on the weather....:rolleyes:


Cattle let in to eat headlands

josephsoap

Did ya get many bales on your paddock muckit ?

I don't know of many beef farmers around here taking out paddocks.

Don't think to many would even have enough grass to take out this year :-D

Muckit

josephsoap wrote: »

Did ya get many bales on your paddock muckit ?

One dairy farmer near me started doing it, but no beef farmers that I know of near me, it's good to be different

Just shy of 4 bales off that bit. 28 in total off approx 4acres of paddocks. Got no fertiliser since spring and grazed twice. Alot of clover in it. Should make nice stuff. I'm hoping that the tight cutting and taking grass off it should bring let light into sward and bring on the clover in regrowth better than say if I had strip grazed and topped. I strip grazed one section and topped it afterwards just to compare

One thing I would say is bales not quite as shapely as if it were meadow due to short grass and lack of a full swarth in front of baler. Just me being fussy perhaps. They were tipped so should hold shape better;)

pakalasa

snowman707 wrote: »

you will get more silage per bale but I think the longer the grass is on the ground it is losing feeding value,
.......we usually mow at about 30 days.. at most grass would had 30 unit of N, leave over night, following day we throw 3 swaths into 1, leave a couple of hours and bale .....

I would agree with this. The feed value does go out of it. We've always done it this way. The real test for silage is it's sweetness. I actually taste it.:D
It helps too to cut around midday when the natural sugars are at the highest.

keep going

hopefully get 18 acres on sun/mon

dryan

Upland silage all done - 2 weeks later than normal due to weather. Got it dry compared to some lads around me so happy enough. Have some silage to do on lower bog land - its fit but gorund conditions are too wet at the moment - will be at least another 2 weeks.

Have lost about 20 acres (grazing and meadow) to the Shannon flooding - 10 acres of which i planned for a bit of hay.
Its a real disaster zone this year.

bogman_bass

finally done. 4 weeks late! huge crop of grass. over 300 bales from 19 acres plus another 23 from a light paddock. problem now is to find somewhere to put them all!

full of the pipe

work at the family contracting business cutting pit silage, cut 2200 acres last year of first cut and 1300 acres 2nd cut anyways were only about 60% through the 1st cut yet whereas last year we were 85% done at this stage, 5 more lads to cut for et that still has a second cut to be done, going to be 1 dragged out season

1chippy

Silage finally in. 4 weeks late. seriously bulky. Usually do wagon but self propelled set up this year. All silage in and pit covered in 5 hours. 8 men at the silage and had 6 covering straight after. Nver had it done as fast.