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Faunsdale, AL | OK, it's wet, so take your 70 and divide by .35 and you'll have a rough estimate of the 100% dry matter price/ton. Take your "dry" hay price and divide by .85 or .90 to compare. You really need a forage test on both to compare. Then you need to decide what you really need to buy. Do you need to supplement energy, protein, or both? Corn silage is going to be an energy supplement primarily, but it does have around 8-10% protein (dry matter basis!) which works out well for cattle that don't need a lot of protein or have some winter grazing coming on. I would have it tested for nitrate as well as the moisture/nutrient analysis. It would be better to know ahead of time if it has higher nitrates so you need to blend it with something or limit feed it to be safe.
You're going to have to have something to feed the silage in, tires, bunks etc. You'll need some kind of hay racks etc for the hay. Do you have those already? Do you have some sort of mixer wagon or at least a "chuck wagon" or silage wagon to put it out with? How will you have it delivered? Daily load and feed or bring in some and feed it over a couple days. Longer times can result in secondary heating/fermentation and deterioration of the silage.
Silage is usually good feed, very palatable to cattle, but can be a lot of trouble to haul and handle before it actually gets to the cows.
Also need to know if it's preserved well and will be removed from storage properly (kept covered until it is time to remove it, any rotten silage discarded instead of being mixed in and hidden in the good stuff, the exposed surfaces of the silage pack kept tight and loose silage cleaned up every day etc). It's not that round bales of hay which have been stored outside won't have rotten hay on the bottoms etc, but you don't usually mix that in and force the cows to eat it unless you grind it. I always figured a cow was smart enough to eat what she needed to eat out of a bale of hay and leave the rest behind. Of course you influence what she'll eat by how often you put out hay and how much you feed. Others like to grind it all and remove the ability of the cows to sort the good from the bad. | |
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What is corn silage worth?
