Our silage advice section of the Agri-Hub offers a collection of articles, guides and blogs aimed at improving the quality of your silage. Written by silage experts we will guide you through using silage additive, storage solutions, chop length and assessing your clamp. We will also look at avoiding aerobic spoilage to create high quality silage that will go on to positively impact herd performance.
When it comes to producing good quality, nutritious silage small things can make a big difference. This is especially true of mistakes. A shortcut or a small oversight can ultimately result in silage that is unusable due to insufficient dry matter content or worse, silage that is dangerous to herd health because of mould growth and the likely presence of mycotoxins or Listeria.
Many farmers have come to accept some issues, particularly with mould, as inevitable and as a necessary evil. The reality is however, it's all too often caused by someone committing one of a number of silage "sins".
Studying your silage clamp and looking at key indicators can benefit the quality of your silage at feed-out. This short video from Ecosyl highlights some of the top tips for assessing your clamp to help maximise the nutritional value of your silage.
One of the biggest variable costs on livestock farms is undoubtedly feed costs and figures are often quoted that grazed grass is the cheapest feed on the farm. However, if we all agree that grazed grass is the cheapest feed on a farm then one target should be to maximise its use. The second obvious target alongside that is to maximise the use of grass silage in those periods when grazed grass is not sufficient to meet the needs of the stock on your farm. There are many choices to be made when considering grass silage the first being whether to bale or to clamp.
When it comes to making silage, and regardless of whether it’s in a clamp or in bale, one of the most important things to have at the forefront of your mind is oxygen. Or more specifically, how to reduce it in the silo at all times.
Negative energy balance during early lactation is a demanding physiological state for the cow at the best of times, and can be made worse through the feeding of butyric silage. The cow’s liver requires optimal condition as the demand for glucose increases from 1kg/d in late gestation to 2.5kg/d 3 weeks post calving. A successful transition determines the success of the subsequent lactation, with energy levels crucial to immune function during the transition period. The feeding of butyric silage, however, can increase the risk of ketosis in cows at all stages of lactation. This is often referred to as type III ketosis, which is the focus of this article.
Having a plan to harvest some of your cereal crops for whole-crop cereal silage is a "no brainer" if you need to top-up tight grass silage stocks on dairy and other livestock farms, says silage specialist, Derek Nelson.
