Can someone help me out with a silage question?

[Whitewing]

My engineer just called and told me that he'd found someone in the area who has 100 hectars (about 245 acres) of corn that's going to be a loss because of the drought.

He hasn't seen the crop yet, but it appears that the average height is about 4 feet, some ears being present.

Anyway, the deal is that we cut it and give the owner half, the other half is ours to keep. I've got an in-ground silo prepared so storage space won't be a problem.

After we've got a decent measurement on the average height, spacing, etc of the plants we'll calculate the volume we can expect to place in the silo.

My question is, what's a reasonable calc for me to use on the volume of material that my cows can eat daily of such material. I've not ever feed them ensiled corn.

 

[Denny]

Depending on cow condition and amount you have you can feed them all they want or limit them we feed about 20#s per day when feeding.

4 ft corn like your talking will only yield 3 to 5 ton per acre would be my guess. Without much corn in it you could feed alot if you have it but I would get it tested for nitrates pretty common in drought corn and it will poisen your cows. I'd chop it for 1/2.

We have corn this year that will go 5 ton to the acre and fields that will go 15 ton depending on the field.Our short corn was in some lowland peat type ground that had alot of rain and cool weather in july but were getting some abnormal heat now and its setting some pretty good ears.Good ears will make up about 50% of your tonnage though.We are short on hay but we will have over a 1000 ton of silage this year. I keep finding more hay to make so looks like I will have 3 to 400 extra bales this year. Our cows will basically survive on corn silage this winter should have 5 ton per cow.

 

[Whitewing]

Depending on cow condition and amount you have you can feed them all they want or limit them we feed about 20#s per day when feeding.

4 ft corn like your talking will only yield 3 to 5 ton per acre would be my guess. Without much corn in it you could feed alot if you have it but I would get it tested for nitrates pretty common in drought corn and it will poisen your cows. I'd chop it for 1/2.

We have corn this year that will go 5 ton to the acre and fields that will go 15 ton depending on the field.Our short corn was in some lowland peat type ground that had alot of rain and cool weather in july but were getting some abnormal heat now and its setting some pretty good ears.Good ears will make up about 50% of your tonnage though.We are short on hay but we will have over a 1000 ton of silage this year. I keep finding more hay to make so looks like I will have 3 to 400 extra bales this year. Our cows will basically survive on corn silage this winter should have 5 ton per cow.

Denny, thanks for that EXCELLENT information. Explain please "chopping it for 1/2". I will have it tested for nitrates, but having said that, is there anything I can do to mitigate a nitrate problem at feeding time.......mixing with other feed, etc? Alternately, is there anything I can do to mitigate a nitrate problem when I put the material in my silo? And finally, how do I recognize signs of nitrate poisioning in my animals?

As I've mentioned before, I've feed whole corn plants with the ears (everything chopped and mixed together) right out of the field to my animals with no problems, but have not ever gone the silo route first. We've got grass right now, and good rain fell last night, so we'll have grass for a while. My plan is to find and cut as much corn as possible for when summer hit really hard in a few more months.

 

[George]

Around here where we put up to 200# of nitrogen per acre for corn in a dry year the nitrate build up in the corn is a big problem. Make sure you test for that but without knowing the program the corn was grown under you might not have a problem.

If you don't have to haul to far and the nitrates are in line it sounds great for you!

 

[DeepDan]

Whitewing,
A couple of things about nitrates- You can dilute the amount of nitrates in an animal's total diet by feeding a nitrate containing forage with a "clean" forage. So possibly feeding a nitrate free hay free choice and limit feeding the silage if the nitrate levels are high. Here's a good publication on nitrate management in beef cattle http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/an_sci/extension/animal/nutr/nitrate%20management%20in%20beef.pdf

Extension service in other states probably have some good publications on nitrate management also, I'm just familiar with NC's. Also, keep in mind that nitrate seems to accumulate more densely in the lower stem portions of alot of grasses, including corn, so cutting it above 6 inches or so for silage may be a good idea.

Also, ensiling will reduce nitrates somewhat, so you may check it after a few months to compare.

The most common sign of nitrate poisoning, unfortunately, is one or more animals dead shortly after eating a high nitrate forage. Some more acute syptoms are labored breathing, frequent urination, abortion, frothing at the mouth and a brown cast to the mucous membranes. A blood sample from an animal suffering from nitrate poisoning will be chocolate brown. (Nitrate converts to nitrite and binds hemoglobin, reducing the blood's ability to carry oxygen.)

Sure enjoy your pictures.
Dan

 

[Whitewing]

Whitewing,
A couple of things about nitrates- You can dilute the amount of nitrates in an animal's total diet by feeding a nitrate containing forage with a "clean" forage. So possibly feeding a nitrate free hay free choice and limit feeding the silage if the nitrate levels are high. Here's a good publication on nitrate management in beef cattle http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/an_sci/extension/animal/nutr/nitrate%20management%20in%20beef.pdf

Extension service in other states probably have some good publications on nitrate management also, I'm just familiar with NC's. Also, keep in mind that nitrate seems to accumulate more densely in the lower stem portions of alot of grasses, including corn, so cutting it above 6 inches or so for silage may be a good idea.

Also, ensiling will reduce nitrates somewhat, so you may check it after a few months to compare.

The most common sign of nitrate poisoning, unfortunately, is one or more animals dead shortly after eating a high nitrate forage. Some more acute syptoms are labored breathing, frequent urination, abortion, frothing at the mouth and a brown cast to the mucous membranes. A blood sample from an animal suffering from nitrate poisoning will be chocolate brown. (Nitrate converts to nitrite and binds hemoglobin, reducing the blood's ability to carry oxygen.)

Sure enjoy your pictures.
Dan

Thanks to both of you DD and George for your responses.

From what I learned this week while at the ranch, this particular 100 hectars of corn didn't necessarily suffer temendously from drought conditions, just turned out to be a lousy crop for some reason and the owner thinks it'd be better used as cattle feed as opposed to paying someone to harvest it.

Having said that, I'm still going to have it tested for nitrate levels and ask the owner about his fertilizer program. We're planning to get started with the cutting, hauling and ensiling process next week.

I'll post some pics. :wink:

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Do you have a forage harvester?

How did you plan to cut and chop it?

 

[Whitewing]

Do you have a forage harvester?

How did you plan to cut and chop it?

We've got two machines we use though one is in need of repair at the moment. The latter is really designed to cut row crops like corn. Last year when our pastures started drying, it had a tough time with some of our grasses....they'd wrap around and bind the grinding/cutting heads like string.

Anyway, the other is an old John Deere harvester but still works really well. I'll post some pics of it in action this past week as we harvested bermuda for replanting. We removed some of the cutting blades so we'd end up with longer material.

For the corn we're going harvest for ensiling, we'll reinstall the cutting blades and I believe we'll get a fine enough chop to go directly from the wagon to the silo.

 

[Whitewing]

Pic of the John Deere harvester cutting bermuda.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

That should work just remember to get it packed good and if possible get a plastic cover on it.

 

[Whitewing]

That should work just remember to get it packed good and if possible get a plastic cover on it.

We're going to wrap it completely in plastic and pack it with this beast, seriously:

 

[hypocritexposer]

pack it first, then cover it with plastic :wink: :wink:

 

[BlackCattleRancher]

Good silage requires good packing which is very dependent on length of cut. Not sure you will be able to get corn chopped up fine enough with a flail chopper to pack well in a bunker. Let us know how it works, I'm always learning.

That should work just remember to get it packed good and if possible get a plastic cover on it.

We're going to wrap it completely in plastic and pack it with this beast, seriously:

 

[Whitewing]

BCR, I know you're right when you speak of a flail chopper, which is a good description of the harvester pictured.

I'm hoping that what we lack in chopping size, we'll make up for with the type of silo we're using and the method we'll pack it.

We've basically got a straight-walled channel that's about 10 feet deep, 250 feet long, and wide enough for the D8 to enter. For drainage, the entire silo slopes downhill.

We're going to first lay a thick plastic that will cover the floor and the walls of the silo. We'll then drive the tractor and "zorra" (wagon) through the silo as we unload the cut material. Initially, the weight of the tractor and loaded wagon should do a decent job of packing the material. Once we've got enough material on the floor that we're not worried about the weight of the D8 affecting the plastic, we'll use the D8 to do the packing.

When finished with the process, we'll cover the top as well with the same thick plastic. I'm hoping the packing and the fact that the material is sealed really well on three sides will do the trick.

As I've mentioned before, we built the silo last year but haven't used it yet. It'll definitely be a learning experience for us.