Feeding maize silage in winter: Setting the herd up for success
As I write this article, we have just had our first frost in the Waikato, a change in weather signalling that winter is upon us.
Making high-quality pasture silage should not be difficult, but it must be viewed as a supplementary feed, rather than just a necessity to manage pasture.
NZ experimental results indicate that increasing silage quality by 2.3 MJ ME/kg DM increased MS production by 13, 17 and 41% in spring, summer and autumn, respectively. Higher quality feed will also increase BCS gain/kg DM eaten.
Making of silage should only be done from a true surplus and the objective is to preserve as many of the original nutrients as possible. In practice, however, silage is often not made at the optimal time, and little attention is paid to the silage-making process.
When grass is cut and left in a heap, it rots! Silage-making is the process of ‘pickling’ pasture to reduce the pH (acidity) to a level that stops the feed ‘rotting’ (i.e. stops microbial activity).
This is achieved through packing the pasture and covering it with plastic to exclude air, while microorganisms burn the sugars in the grass to produce lactic and acetic acid. If the silage is exposed to air (e.g. torn plastic) a chain reaction occurs that reduces silage quality.
Pasture silage can be made either in a field stack, a pit/concrete bunker (on top of the ground) or as bales. Provided the quality of the material going into the silage is the same and proper attention is paid to compacting and covering the pasture, pasture silage quality should be the same from either stack/pit or baled silage.
The decision to make bales or stack/pit silage is generally dependent on the farm system, the method of feeding silage and the infrastructure available for silage storage.
- Baled silage is more costly but enables flexibility of crop size and storage location onfarm and feeding out of small amounts on set occasions.
- Stack silage can also be stored in many locations and is cheaper than baled silage.
- Pit/bunker silage does not offer flexibility in storage but when properly used will result in less wastage. Pit silage is easier to compact and therefore to expel air.
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
Within the next 10 years, New Zealand agriculture will need to manage its largest-ever intergenerational transfer of wealth, conservatively valued at $150 billion in farming assets.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Selecting the reverse gear quicker than a lovestruck boyfriend who has met the in-laws for the first time, the Coalition Government has confirmed that the proposal to amend Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) charged against farm utes has been canned.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…