silage feeding question

[scout]

this is my first year feeding silage we lost a large chunk of hay ground this year and with the excessive rain some corn was really pour so we chopped it the it was estimated at 11 bushel to the acre on 200 bushel ground. my question is how many pounds of silage should i feed to my stock cows . cows avg wght is 1250 lbs . some will start calving the 1st of March and the other herd is lactaing with 200 lb calves at side.i was planning on starting the fall cows on the silage Jan 1st. the spring cows will get started when they finish grazing stockpiled pasture and corn stocks. around 1st of Feb another question on feed bunks should I figure about 2ft per cow so a 20 foot bunk should feed 20 cows figureing they eat off of both sides.

 

[rancherfred]

You had better get it tested and then repost your question. Without knowing what the forage test looks like it is hard to tell you what the cattle should be consuming.

 

[Denny]

How much do you have?

Last year our silage was 75% moisture I'd feed 12 loader buckets full plus 2 of ground meadow hay and 2 scoops of distillars syrup mixed never weighed it but I'd guess 6000#s a day to 150 cows. They also got all the hay they wanted.Take away all the water and it was'nt that great of feed this year we have less tonnage of silage but the amount of corn is 125 buschel an acre which is pretty good for around here.We have'nt began feeding silage yet I figure another 2 weeks to a month. My cows press pretty hard on fences in the spring if they don't have alot of silage to eat.

If the silage you have is cornless you could pretty much give them all they want at least thats what I'd do. I normally have to much silage so I feed alot of it in the spring. We have 40' of last years pile yet plus a smaller pile at the house plus the new pile.Hay crop was great on what we got baled but I left 4-500 bales in the meadows due to moisture.We'll make grass without buying feed but nothing to spare.

 

[Clarencen]

Years back, we fed silage to calves, but very little to cows. I believe that silage runs about 30% dry matter. if you would feed silage alone, figuring 2lb dry matter per 100 lb body weight I believe you would feed about 80 lbs per head a day.
Silage goes through an animals digestive system fairly fast so it doesn't generate as much heat as hay. People used to say a cow would freeze to death on silage alone, I don't think that is true but there is a difference.

 

[scout]

I'm planning on feeding it with free choice ground hay. I would like to have the pile fed by march 15th before the mud gets here . Im on sand but when the frost goes my road gets bad. I don't want to feed them straight silage , I just want to supplement the hay . the hay is pretty rank we didn't get 1st cutting up till the 24 of june it is a little rank.

 

[Clarencen]

That should work. That's the way we fed it to calves, along with a little grain. We did like silage for feed, but it involved a lot of work, putting it up, feeding, and all.

 

[Big Swede]

I agree with rancherfred, until you get an analysis on your silage and your hay you have no idea what they need. Might as well do it right and feed a balanced ration. This is one of those situations where a few dollars spent could return you hundreds or even thousands depending on the number of cows you are feeding.