Feeding Silage and Hay

[Cheak]

My family has farmed beef cattle for several generations. They have always fed hay only for winter feed rations. I like the idea of corn silage because of the ability to produce more pounds of feed per acre. My question is does anyone feed predominantly corn silage with just a small amount of hay over winter? My idea would be to feed around 25-30 lbs of silage daily with around 10 lbs good quality grass hay....but I may be way off??? Any experience/opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[AllForage]

Well that's pretty much how most of WI does it.

 

[bmoore87]

Would depend on your cow size and silage dry matter level. But that would be in the ballpark with 35 to 45% DM corn silage. Really like corn silage since you can add or subtract a few pounds from a ration easily and keeps them in good shape in cold weather.

 

[TexasBred]

What are local prices on corn silage this year? Very high down this year I'm told.

 

[Son of Butch]

What are local prices on corn silage this year? Very high down this year I'm told.

$30 ton at 65% moisture in Minnesota

Silage crops are not routinely traded so, determining a fair market value is a bit tricky.
Rule of thumb for standing corn is 8 times the price of corn. $3.50 bu = $28 ton
and 9-10 times the price of corn for silage in storage. 3.50 = $31 - $35 ton

150 bu per acre = 20 tons per acre with 7.5 bushels of corn per ton.
100 bu = 13 tons p.a. and 7 bu per ton
180 bu = 23 tons p.a. and 8 bushels per ton

 

[TexasBred]

What are local prices on corn silage this year? Very high down this year I'm told.

$30 ton at 65% moisture in Minnesota

Silage crops are not routinely traded so, determining a fair market value is a bit tricky.
Rule of thumb for standing corn is 8 times the price of corn. $3.50 bu = $28 ton
and 9-10 times the price of corn for silage in storage. 3.50 = $31 - $35 ton

150 bu per acre = 20 tons per acre with 7.5 bushels of corn per ton.
100 bu = 13 tons p.a. and 7 bu per ton
180 bu = 23 tons p.a. and 8 bushels per ton

Cheap enough. I had heard farmers down this way were paid $38 a ton standing....then the cost of cutting, hauling and packing.

 

[Cheak]

So if an acre of hybrid corn lets say produces 25 tons. I'm assuming that is the weight of product at the time of production. At feed time, how much would that 25 tons be....would it be 20? My hope would be to chop sometime in September then with managed pasture rotation, not have to start feeding till December. Of course all that's pending the weather, rain, and sunshine are optimal. Trying to figure out how many acres one needs to grow to feed "x" number of head. Thanks for all the input thus far everyone!

 

[Son of Butch]

20 tons per acre is the national average.
at 25 tons the corn would have to be pushing 200+ bushel an acre.
shrink from production to feeding would mostly be from mold/spoiling and would depend on how it was stored,
how fast it was fed and air temp... high moisture feed exposed to the elements spoils much faster and deeper the warmer the weather gets.

 

[TexasBred]

So if an acre of hybrid corn lets say produces 25 tons. I'm assuming that is the weight of product at the time of production. At feed time, how much would that 25 tons be....would it be 20? My hope would be to chop sometime in September then with managed pasture rotation, not have to start feeding till December. Of course all that's pending the weather, rain, and sunshine are optimal. Trying to figure out how many acres one needs to grow to feed "x" number of head. Thanks for all the input thus far everyone!

Doubt we have any 200 bu/acre corn down here so production would be 16-18 tons to the acre. 25 tons will still be close to 25 tons when packed and stored. If it's stored in a bunker silo a little of the moisture will seep out. Just keep in mind that it is 65% moisture so you have to feed much more of it to get the dry matter into the cattle that they need.

 

[bmoore87]

If your having problems estimating how much you need ask your feed company if they have a nutritionist who can advise or maybe a local dairy farm would have someone who can help you. You can estimate tons out in the field or after in storage to get an idea of tons harvested. Having the silage tested for dry matter level at times when feeding can help. We found our silage often had more dry matter than we thought and were over feeding our cows. Attached is a link with some general

infohttp://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Silage/S004.aspx

 

[skeeter swatter]

May notice a little larger birthweight versus feeding hay if the silage has a lot of corn in it.
Also may want to feed a higher calcium mineral to balance out the phos.

 

[hillbilly beef man]

That is what we ran into when we ran a charloais bull and started feeding silage in November to March-April calvers. We started waiting till after they calved to start them on silage and our calves we had to pull dropped by 2/3. I always thought an ideal situation for silage on a cow calf operation would be with October calvers. This would let you start with the silage about December when they are needing the extra milk production.

 

[bmoore87]

I would guess the silage would have a better overall feed value since it is green when harvested. Also you can control better how much you feed to the cattle each day and their would be less waste than grazing standing corn since they will eat the whole stalk.

Benefits of standing corn would be no chopping/storage cost and don't have to spend time feeding every day.

 

[TexasBred]

This is a great thread. I have been thinking about this for a while. My questions revolve around the feed value of corn silage. So, is there more value in silage over allowing the cows to graze standing corn? I have never tried to graze standing corn, but would like to give it a try. My neighbors run a small 50 head dairy. They make corn silage to feed their Holsteins. They never allow the cows to graze the corn. What is the opinion here??

Thanks a million all!!

Tim

Feeding in the form of silage will give you a much more uniform distribution of corn, stalk and leaves, thus uniform protein, energy, starch content and roughage content. Every bite will basically be the same whereas grazing standing corn might have half the cows eating nothing but ears of corn while others eat little more than the dry leaves. Requires more equipment and time but to feed silage but you can better control how much you want to feed and done properly virtually eliminate shrink (waste or loss).

 

[Cheak]

Anyone with any experience feeding hair sheep corn silage? I've read listeriosis can be an issue much more frequently in sheep than cattle. But does it play out that often? I'd eventually like to add some Katahdin Ewes and White Dorper Rams to our cattle herd to diversify and increase profitability per acre. 3 lamb crops in 2 years and their prolific ability to twin often sound good to me. Trying to get an idea of what their winter rations could be...