Silage

“ By doubling the figures of the bottom layer analysis, adding these to the second and third layer analysis, and dividing by 4, we obtain a fair representation of the average composition of the silage taken throughout the silo, for by so doing we obtain the average of the analyses of each 6-inch layer of silage. The results of the analyses are as follows, calculated on the dry matter. The moisture was practically the same, being 70.48 per cent, in the grass and 72.97 in the silage. ”

“ Station.
* * * A silo is a place where fodder is preserved in a succulent condition. It may be a pit, a box, a mow, a tank, a building, or a trench in the earth. Silage is the word denoting the fodder so preserved. Ensilage is the term applied to the process or system. Ensile is the verb expressive of the action of making silage. Ensilor stands for the person using the silo to ensile fodder for silage by the process of ensilage. ”

“ To erect a silo outside of a barn, with sufficient stability to stand well, the height above ground should not be much more than twice the diameter, and in order to avoid waste for summer feeding, the diameter should not be greater than 16 feet for a herd of 40 cows. In order that a deep enough layer of silage can be fed off each day during the summer to avoid waste, it is evident that to store 250 tons of silage outside the barn, two silos would be required. ”

“ To summarize, silage is safe to feed to horses and mules only when it is made from fairly mature corn, properly stored in the silo. When it is properly stored and is not allowed to mold, no feed exceeds it as a cheap winter ration. It is most valuable for horses and mules which are not at heavy work, such as brood mares and work horses during the slack season. With plenty of grain on the cornstalks, horses will keep in good condition on a ration of 20 pounds of silage and 10 pounds of hay for each 1,000 pounds of live weight. ”

“ Good silage is a result of proper cutting, proper packing and a correct amount of moisture, because when the silage is stored it begins to ferment. Heat is generated in the process of fermentation. If the heat is lost through the silo wall, the fermentation is not correct. If the silage is not packed properly and tightly, especially next to the wall, it does not settle in a compact mass and air is admitted that spoils the silage ”

“ They conclude that the changes occurring in silage are produced partly by a continuation of the respiratory activities of the plant cells, which, for a time, are stimulated rather than checked when the plants are cut to pieces for storing in the silage, and partly as the result of the action of certain chemical ferments or enzymes, which are eliminated from the plant cells after the death of the plant. ”

“ For this purpose small feed boxes are put in each stall near the mangers, where the mares eat. After being weaned the colts are fed about 7 pounds of silage a day with the grain. Alfalfa hay also is put in a rack in the yard, in which the colts are turned out each day, and they eat as much of this as they care for.
The ration fed is higher than a balanced ration. There has never been any sickness resulting from the use of silage. The animals always come through the winter in good breeding condition and in proper shape to be turned on to pasture in the spring. ”

“ Care is taken to feed the horses lightly at first so that they may become accustomed to the new food.
A large bin has been built, connecting with a room below the doors of the silo. This bin is filled from time to time with a mixture of four parts of hay and one of straw, cut about 3 inches long, by being run through a silage machine. The silage is always mixed with this cut hay and straw before feeding. The proportions are about one to five of silage by weight. By cutting the hay and straw, the amount wasted is reduced to a minimum. ”

“ The practice of weighting the silo is now largely abandoned, though I am not certain but what some heavy material along the edges and in the corners will aid in saving the ensilage at those points, since it is here that the contents do not settle so well as does the body of the material. For a few weeks after filling the sides and corners should be tramped down occasionally to aid them in settling. ”

“ The difference in the total nitrogen in the grass and silage is equal to 0.68 per cent. of albuminoids. Practically it is a matter of impossibility that the nitrogen could have increased in the silo, and it will be a very safe premise upon which to base any further calculations that the total amount of nitrogen in the silage was identical with that in the grass. ”

“ As land values increase and farmers and dairymen come to more fully appreciate the worth of green feed in winter, the silo grows in estimation. Eastern farmers who keep cows or young stock of any kind use the silo more or less, to conserve for winter the value of both green grass and corn. Alfalfa makes an excellent silage, but its peculiar quality of retaining its green food value, as hay, when properly cured, makes its ensiling much less a necessity. Alfalfa hay taken from the mow in February, green, appetizing and nutritious, falls little, if any, short of serving the purposes of silage. ”

“ I believe the ensilage would be better without any tramping and packing if we could only get it to settle uniformly without. We should endeavor to secure an elevation in temperature of from 120 to 140 deg. uniformly throughout the mass of material. If the contents of the silo heat up to different degrees in different places we cannot expect them to be uniform in quality, though all will be eaten by the stock. ”

“ Owing to the fact that a silo is a necessity for the most economical production of milk, a barn is not complete for a dairyman's purpose unless it includes a silo with capacity to store sufficient silage for the herd. In the case of the round barn, the silo is most economically built inside, but in the rectangular form would cause a waste of space, and for that reason is best erected outside. Therefore, in comparing a round dairy barn with a rectangular dairy barn, silos should be included. ”

“ During wet weather if one dry day comes it will be sufficient to get in any crop convertable into silage, so that it need not be lost entirely. Always cover the stack at night with a waterproof sheet. When completed it can be pressed or not, if the latter there is likely to be a layer on top that is mouldy and useless, but that is all, and a man loses more than that very often when making hay during a wet season. ”

“ If, however, by using an abundance of bedding and saving all the high-priced nitrogen and the larger part of the potash in the manure, he is able to raise twelve tons of silage in place of eight tons, 91 or three tons of hay in place of two tons, his enterprise as a whole will be more profitable when he uses the extra amount of bedding, although so far as the production of a quart of milk is concerned the cost is increased. It may be that by feeding corn to cattle or sheep one will obtain only 50 cents a bushel for his maize, while his neighbor is selling it to the elevator at 60 cents. ”

“ If built above ground fill the rooms of the two compartments with earth until the surface is three or four inches above the outside level, so that no water will at any time enter to injure the ensilage that rests on the ground. I do not yet know which is the best method of preserving the silo from decaying. ”

“ It would be more desirable, usually, to make the first cutting from alfalfa into ensilage than later cuttings, because of the showery character of the weather at that season, but the strong objection stands in the way of doing so, that no carbonaceous food, as corn, sorghum or soy beans, is ready for going into the silo then as they are later, with a view of aiding in the better preservation of the ensilage and of making a better balanced ration. Good alfalfa silage is more easily [Pg 170] made when the alfalfa has been run through a cutting-box than when in the uncut forms. ”

“ Silo filling may go on for two or three weeks, or until the pits are filled, when they should be covered after standing a day or two to allow the last layer to heat. For covering material there may be placed over the ensilage building paper upon which may be placed sand, earth, chaff, cut straw, marsh hay, long straw, sawdust, or almost any material which will help keep out the air. If one wishes the pits may be left uncovered, in which case something like a foot of the ensilage will decay and form a covering and protection for that beneath. ”

“ Probably very few stone silos will be built in the future, for experience shows that a stone wall chills the ensilage during the curing process and if it does not seriously injure that portion next to it to a thickness of several inches it renders it at least less palatable than ensilage nearer the middle of the silo. One reason, in my judgment, that the silo has not won more friends in the Eastern States is owing to the common use of stone in its construction. ”

“ When the influence of these varying conditions, which include the peculiarities of the crop, as well as the method of filling the silo, is so well understood that ensilage of a uniform and desired quality can be produced with certainty, the most important objections that are now made to it will be obviated, and it will readily take its place on the farm as a staple article of cattle-food. ”

“ Twenty-five cows will eat up the ensilage about as fast as one man can get it out. It may be just as economical, however, to put two men into the silo for an hour or two each day during the winter, when labor is cheap, to get out the ensilage as it is to use more expensive labor in the fall to accomplish the extra work of running the feed-cutter.
“Slow filling is without doubt the best method for securing good ensilage, no matter what material we are using, be it clover, long fodder-corn, or fodder cut fine. ”

“ This can only be done by killing the bacteria of fermentation in the earliest stages of their activity, which would result in the production of ensilage free from acidity, and closely resembling, in quality, the green fodder from which it is made. If the bacteria can be killed, when the silo is covered and weighted, the inclosed mass of ensilage will be practically preserved under the same conditions as fruits, or vegetables, or meats, are preserved when canned. ”

“ If the boards and timbers are saturated with hot coal-tar, which can readily be done with trifling expense, the durability of the silo will be very much increased. From the fact that wood is not so good a conductor of heat as walls of masonry, it will be seen, from what follows, that wooden silos may have an important advantage over any others in preserving the ensilage, which, in connection with the saving of expense in their construction, must have an influence in bringing them into general use. ”

“ There is now little doubt as to the value of ensilage as a food for cattle, for there is abundant testimony from various parts of the country,{125} where the experiment has been tried of building silos, that beasts thrive upon the compressed fodder that had been stored therein. ”

“ Maize is harvested for silage when the cobs are well filled, and the grain is beginning to glaze; at this stage a normal crop will yield about 20 tons greenstuff per acre. Sorghum will produce about 15 tons, and barley and vetches or peas about 10 tons per acre. Wheat and oats are often grown in order to be cut for hay, and make an excellent fodder. ”

“ It is certain that ensilage usually heats up easily and rapidly except in the corners and along the walls, where we find the temperature does not rise so rapidly nor to the same degree as it does in the body of the silo, and anything that will help us overcome this lack will improve its quality, and I deem Mr. ”

“ The material is spread in uniform layers over the floor of the silo, and closely packed and trodden down. If possible, not more than a foot or two should be added daily, so as to allow the mass to settle down closely, and to heat uniformly throughout. When the silo is filled or the stack built, a layer of straw or some other dry porous substance may be spread over the surface. In the silo the pressure of the material, when chaffed, excludes air from all but the top layer ”

“ Corn-fodder may be preserved in a perfectly satisfactory manner without running it through the feed-cutter, and may be drawn from the field and deposited directly in the silo. The expense of putting corn-fodder through the feed-cutter, first and last, is not far from half of all that incurred from the time of cutting the fodder to closing the silo. To fill the silo with long fodder let it be drawn in the usual manner and lifted at once into the pit, which can be accomplished in several ways, either by hand or the horse hay-fork carrier and slings. ”

“ Of the ten fixed ingredients enumerated as entering into wheat, ashes yield potash, soda, lime, magnesia, sulphuric and phosphoric acids, in large proportions, and silica and iron in smaller. The chemical operation of the potash, and carbonate and sulphate of lime, however, when added to the soil, is to supply the silica, in a soluble state, from its natural condition, (it being found in abundance for this object in every soil, except in such as are formed almost exclusively of peat,) for the demands of the crop. ”

“ Agriculture never took a longer stride in advance than it did when the silo was added to the practical equipment of the farm. Most of us were slow to realize this at first, and a great many are yet unwilling to concede the advantages claimed for the silo, but the utility of the modern silo cannot be gainsaid, for without it we are left at the mercy of the elements in the handling of our great corn crop. ”