At most risk are bunker and stack silos, which have a much larger feeding face, on most farms entirely open to the elements. The almost daily rains we’ve been having throughout much of Northern dairy country can really make it tough to weigh out the silage in TMRs.
Relying on a silage DM test during a dry spell (remember those?), and then mixing this silage by weight right after a big rain, can result in serious underfeeding of the silage. Of course that’s because you’re feeding a lot of rainwater with the silage, and the face of a bunker or stack silo can really absorb the “liquid sunshine.”
In some cases, it would be better to feed heavily rained-on silage by volume rather than by weight: For instance, if you’ve been putting two front end loader buckets of corn silage into your TMR mixer (and know how much this has been weighing), you may be better off to feed two buckets of rained-on corn silage without paying attention to how much it weighs. FG
—Excerpts from Miner Institute Farm Report, May 2011
Sampling forages during wet conditions
BUYER'S GUIDE
VISIT OUR BUYER’S GUIDEH&S Manufacturing Co., Inc. is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer based in Marshfield, WI. Founded in 1967, H&S products include forage boxes, manure spreaders, hay rakes, bale processors, grinder and roller mixers, roller mil...
Priority
IAC is a farm-developed and family-owned company bringing this unique
viewpoint, invention, and knowledge directly to the field.
-
LATEST NEWS
-
-
-
-
March 2024 new product rollout
March 5, 2024
-