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.
These use knitted textile held down by gravel bags, seen replacing tyres on stacks in England, Europe and America, he says. They are clean, safe and don’t cost the earth.
Tyres – dirty and heavy to handle – also present a risk of wire being eaten by livestock, causing injury to digestive tracts. Sometimes this would be treatable but if wire were to pierce an animal’s stomach wall it would likely need to be put down.
Also, farmers covering maize and silage stacks with soil or limestone can struggle to retrieve feed cleanly especially from top of a stack.
Secure Covers are made of knitted, UV-stabilised polyethylene mesh. The cover is placed over the usual polythene silage sheet and weighed down with 15kg gravel bags.
Wrightson says the system provides an effective seal: the fabric withstands wind, ensuring the cover sheet stays in place over the feed.
The knitted mesh is strong and carries a 10 year guarantee. After use the cover folds up to a bundle about 1m square by 300-400mm thick.
Wrightson recommends using pea gravel to fill the gravel bags, but says farmers can use anything that’s bigger than the pores in the bag.
Feed barn builders DesignMax, Waiuku, sell the covers in Auckland region.
Wrightson says customers grow their usage of the covers year by year. “We get a few more local dairy boys using it every year. They tend to use tyres with the netting in the first year and add more bags and nets in subsequent seasons.”
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