New Silage Pit Vs Bales

Mooooo

Dmd and p% are important as well. Wilting too long reduces those, there is a balance. In a normal year where a strong paddock may be baled growing perhaps 21 to 24 days by the time it's baled would regularly get 4 to 5 bales/ acre dry bales as grass dry mown and raked in before baling 24 to 30 hours later normally

GrasstoMilk

Bass Reeves wrote: »

About 7-8 weeks. Closed April 1st and usually cut May 25th. Gets 2-3 k gallons of slurry by dribble bar and about 65-70 more units of Urea. Last few years got a great wilt Contractor had a Krone baler. If you are getting 15/ acre you are baling a lot if water and air. May be a
Affordable at milk but not at beef. 1st cut last year tested nearly 50 DM and a bale fed 16 stores for two days. At a calculation each bale had about 350 kgs of DM. My land suffers in dry weather I was in drought conditions from late May last year. This would effect productions levels to an extent but wilt has a huge impact. Grass cut late May is much better to pack rather than mid May really leafy soiage IMO.

Contractor has a big impact as well. Neighbour had this old lad doing his with an MF390 and a separate baler and wrapper. He was always getting 15-16 bales with a 3 day wilt on early June. Switched to a contractor with newer Machinery bale count dropped by 33%

Cut with conditioner mower and left down for 36 hours. The odd few bales would be under 30% dm but most are over it.
Raked in by contractor and baled with a new McHale baler. Definitely not bales of water or air

GrasstoMilk

cute geoge wrote: »

There is a big difference in the number of bales per acre if the grass is wilted and tedded out ,i made super silage yesterday growing 6 weeks like yourself and got 7 bales/acre also .It was cut turned out and baled within 24 hours .Some lads would prefer to wilt this for several days and get 4 bales/acre !!!!

It wouldnt be great stuff if left down for any longer than 36 hours. Protein% energy and dmd dropping

cute geoge

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

It wouldnt be great stuff if left down for any longer than 36 hours. Protein% energy and dmd dropping

Is that the gospel according to Teagasc and your contractor .I have seen a fair share of dung made within 36 hours ,I know stuff wilted in a day like yesterday should be very good but we do not get a whole pile of days like yesterday.
I have seen poor quality grass over grown in low ground cut ,tedded ,wilted and baled after maybe 4 days turn into nice quality feed .Baling this up any sooner would only be a fools game anyway

Mooooo

cute geoge wrote: »

Is that the gospel according to Teagasc and your contractor .I have seen a fair share of dung made within 36 hours ,I know stuff wilted in a day like yesterday should be very good but we do not get a whole pile of days like yesterday.
I have seen poor quality grass over grown in low ground cut ,tedded ,wilted and baled after maybe 4 days turn into nice quality feed .Baling this up any sooner would only be a fools game anyway

Tis the gospel according to the bulk tank. The cow's are faster than anyone else at telling whether or not the stuff they are eating is any good 're performance.

Markcheese

Does anybody wrap large square bales,?
Seen tractors drawing large square bales of grass, and was wondering Wether it'd be wrapped or put in a pit... And if baled how long it'd keep..

Wildsurfer

Have heard of a fella putting them in a pit, he saw it being done in NZ, apparently popular there. Sounds a great idea for multiple cuts just keep adding to pit and roll on the plastic. Wonder would there be a bit of waste between them, hard to pack them together that tightly?

Grueller

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Have heard of a fella putting them in a pit, he saw it being done in NZ, apparently popular there. Sounds a great idea for multiple cuts just keep adding to pit and roll on the plastic. Wonder would there be a bit of waste between them, hard to pack them together that tightly?

Lad here does it. Puts the bales in cuts off the cords and then a few loads of self propel on top rolled in. No extra waste.

Bass Reeves

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

It wouldnt be great stuff if left down for any longer than 36 hours. Protein% energy and dmd dropping

Mooooo wrote: »

Tis the gospel according to the bulk tank. The cow's are faster than anyone else at telling whether or not the stuff they are eating is any good 're performance.

Everything is relative while the silage I make is not suitable for milking cows it is good enough for stores. Beef will not sustain extra cost. Teagasc, the FJ and Dawn all have beef farm systems. Every one of them is lost money last year before labour and land rental costs are added into the costs. They follow the systemadvocated by the top 10%.

I bought store Friesians last August, I killed some the end of May. By by calculation they had averaged 0.9kg/day for the time on the farm. They were only on ration for 25 days 3kgs/head. Last winter they were on the baled silage I described. Feeding costs of silage was 80c/head/day. If I had baled after 24-30 hours cost would increase to over a euro/day. The cattle grew very well over the winter and were storish hitting grass after a 120 day housing period. IMO they gained 40-50 kgs at least over the winter. Compensatory growth has been good after the winter. I have found over the years that Late May/ early June silage is good enough for stores especially if it has very high DM. If the cattle gained another 200 grams/day and everything else remain equal( compensatory growth etc ) it would be 24LW or about 12kgs DW worth 40 euro. However my winter feeding cost would go up 30c/day or 36 euro and that is provided compensatory growth is not effected. Higher input systems in beef are a zero sum game.
There is f@@king idiots still with cattle inside after buying cattle during Febuary and March on the strenght of processor information if they have not got contracts from the processors and end up recieving present base prices 3.7-3.75/kg they will lose 100's/head. Bulk tank and the Friesian Bullock have different mathematical equations. It not a straight line like y=mx+C

Gawddawggonnit

WTF Bass, beef is non linear?

Trop compliqué...:)

Good post btw.

Bass Reeves

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Bulk tank and the Friesian Bullock have different mathematical equations. It not a straight line like y=mx+C

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

WTF Bass, beef is non linear?

Trop compliqué...:)

Good post btw.

I think taht is what I said