Even if everything goes perfectly in the field, improper treatment of the crop coming off the field will lead to spoilage and waste of a very valuable part of a feed ration.

Did you know we’re posting additional updates from our producers on the Progressive Forage Grower website?

Visit http://bit.ly/SilageSeason to see how things are going for them and share your own experiences in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you!

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Jeff Handschke
Sugar Creek Dairy • New London, Wisconsin

handschke_jeffWe use a variety of storage – some upright walls and some drive-over. I really don’t care for the drive-over piles.

They are harder to manage the forages going in, and you need a bigger footprint on the land to get equal storage.

Our outside wall is poured, but the inside walls are movable panels set on asphalt. As we grew our dairy, we were able to make the bunkers whatever size we needed.The asphalt pad is excellent because it never pits from the acids from the feed.

As far as packing, we always try to have two tractors on the pile at one time, one pushing the feed up and one packing. Both have blades and are loaded with fluid and weights.

The pushing tractor is an articulated model and the other is front-wheel assist. This year we are also looking at adding a three-point attachment with steel wheels spaced 6 inches apart to compact even more.

Rodney Elliott
Drumgoon Dairy • Lake Norden, South Dakota

elliott_rodneyWe use a drive-over pile for the corn silage and alfalfa haylage. We have a 300-foot-by-300- foot square feed pad and usually can stack up to 30,000 tons of corn silage, feeding alternative years from east to west or west to east. The maximum fill height can often be up to 30 feet.

We like the drive-over feed pile because it enables us to get an even packing on all areas of the pile. It is also the safest for the equipment and operators.

The pile is packed using four, 500-hp four-wheel-drive tractors. They are packing continuously in layers of 2 to 3 inches, hoping to achieve a dense, air-free pile.

Chris Sukalski
Reiland Farms • LeRoy, Minnesota

sukalski_chrisWe use a combination of piles and bunkers. We have not chopped any conventional silage in two years due to good yields on BMR.

Most is stored in a nearly square pile that measures 12 feet high, 200 feet long and 110 feet wide. We also use two 25-by-160-foot bunkers.

The large pile is on a base of rock overlaid with lime. This can present some problems if operators are not careful when loading.

We’ve found that this configuration allows us the most silage per square foot, which saves plastic and tires. The silage is covered with a double layer of plastic to reduce spoilage.

As far as packing, our equipment is not quite as heavy as we’d like, but we make up for it with repetition.

We pack at a rate of up to 120 tons per hour – eight loads at 15 tons each. We are careful to keep loads from coming in too fast to allow ample time for packing and keep workers safe.

Keith Dawydko
Anchor Farms, Inc • Clarence, New York

dawydko_keithMost of our storage is in Ag Bags. Only being a 100-cow dairy, we felt we could not maintain good quality in a bunker due to the smaller feedout rate.

With the bags we are not limited to what we can store. We are able to separate different cuttings or types of hay.

With corn silage we can separate varieties and dry matter. It is also very easy to mark the bag for changes in moisture, fields, inoculant, etc.

In good years when we have extra haylage or silage, we carry it over. As long as the bag is sealed with no holes, it will keep perfect. Sometimes this is a big challenge.

We rented a bagger for a few years and then bought our own. I did not like the cost for renting the machine and not being able to harvest when crops were ready. We helped justify the cost by renting our machine to neighboring farmers. After a few years the machine was paid for.

Ray Robinson
Moo Mountain Milk and East Ridge Milk • Burley, Idaho

robinson_rayWe use bunker pits and open slab pits for storing our corn silage. At Moo Mountain Milk we have dirt pits with paved floors, and at East Ridge Milk we have two large paved areas that we can drive over from any direction.

We store our BMR corn silage separately from the conventional, but this year we’ll have very little conventional corn. We cover our corn silage with plastic and tire sidewalls. That’s the way everyone does it in this area, and if done properly it reduces spoilage.

As far as the equipment we use to pack, it depends on if we are using more than one chopper. If we’re running two choppers we’ll use a big articulating tractor; if we’re working with one chopper, we use a four-wheel-drive tractor.

We keep a slope on our piles so we can safely drive over them from any direction, and we’re careful not to pack above the sidewalls on our pits.