Myths of feeding silage?

[limftw]

We put up silage last year because we just can't raise enough hay on the land we have to support our operation. Anyways, I was talking to an old-timer here, and he claims he doesn't like to feed silage to his cows if he can avoid it. He felt that feeding silage caused their teeth to rot and a higher frequency of scours in calves.

We are halfway thru the feeding season here and I can honestly say i haven't seen any change in the frequency of scours vs. last year. As far as the teeth rotting goes I guess time will tell.

 

[dun]

We put up silage last year because we just can't raise enough hay on the land we have to support our operation. Anyways, I was talking to an old-timer here, and he claims he doesn't like to feed silage to his cows if he can avoid it. He felt that feeding silage caused their teeth to rot and a higher frequency of scours in calves.

We are halfway thru the feeding season here and I can honestly say i haven't seen any change in the frequency of scours vs. last year. As far as the teeth rotting goes I guess time will tell.

As to the teeth rotting, hog wash. The scours may be an issue only because the cows are eating a hotter diet and the additional nutrition in the milk could cause "milk scours". About the same that happens if you feed a lot of grain.

 

[regolith]

Sure, if you wait long enough their teeth'll wear out but I don't know how long you'll need to wait because I've known some fat 14 yr old dairy cows that ate silage (and the strings too) for nearly seven months of the year, every year.
Don't know about the calves, I've always avoided giving pre-ruminants direct access to silage if at all possible. I had some of mine (suckled calves 5 weeks old) grazing with people who were giving them silage direct and it didn't seem to do them any harm, though I was mad about it because they also weren't giving the calves the grain feed I'd provided... five week calf can't get much nutrition from silage.

 

[onecarl2002]

We have fed silage for many years and we keep our cows to they get to old to raise good calves and we have never ever had a tooth problem. And for the calves as soon as they get old enough to eat we start feeding them away from the big cows so they can eat as much silage as they want and we never have a problem. All we feed all are cattle (cows bulls calves) is silage and hay with no problems at all to speak of.

 

[Bigfoot]

Logically there would be less tooth wear with silage than hay. Perhaps I'm wrong.

 

[TexasBred]

Logically there would be less tooth wear with silage than hay. Perhaps I'm wrong.

No you're right on. Silage is easier to chew and more digestible. If anything the only potential problem is remembering that it contains a huge amount of water thus you have to feed much more of it than if feeding hay.

 

[dun]

The deal is the tooth rotting that was mentioned, not wear. I suppose it's logical that more of the starches would be turned to sugar but it isn;t like a human eating penny candy. As acid as a cows rumen and cud is I can;t imagine the sugar being an issue.