Fodder Shortage 2018

muckymanor said:
We have a pen of cows on the slats that had calves weaned off them. We just tested bales with them. 60% DM haylage baled mid June will feed the pen more than double as long as 30% silage baled on September 1st. Thought the second cut was very dry but the feeding just isn't in it. But we have an awful lot of feeding in the drier silage.
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What’s the DMD mucky?
 
muckymanor said:
We have a pen of cows on the slats that had calves weaned off them. We just tested bales with them. 60% DM haylage baled mid June will feed the pen more than double as long as 30% silage baled on September 1st. Thought the second cut was very dry but the feeding just isn't in it. But we have an awful lot of feeding in the drier silage.
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One way or another. Dm always stays around 30 here
 
muckymanor said:
We have a pen of cows on the slats that had calves weaned off them. We just tested bales with them. 60% DM haylage baled mid June will feed the pen more than double as long as 30% silage baled on September 1st. Thought the second cut was very dry but the feeding just isn't in it. But we have an awful lot of feeding in the drier silage.
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I would expect a 60% bale to last cattle longer than twice the time a 30% dm bale will last, assuming the same quality.

The second cut may be of higher quality or higher sugar, so the cow knock back more of it.
 
Ozzy Scott said:
I would expect a 60% bale to last cattle longer than twice the time a 30% dm bale will last, assuming the same quality.

The second cut may be of higher quality or higher sugar, so the cow knock back more of it.
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first cut bale 600kg
DM 60%
DM = 360kg

Second Cut bale 900kg
DM 30%
DM = 270kg

Possibly the second cut is higher sugar. Cows definitely need more of it to be content.

It goes to show that some lads may be underestimating the amount of first cut that they have and over estimating the amount of second cut.
Lads are paying big money for second or third cut bales that don't have the feeding of first cut.
 
That leads on nicely to the next question how are lads fixed with fodder now as we are heading into the winter and housing period? Did people get a chance to build stocks or buy them over the last few weeks ?
 
We have a hand held moisture meter for hay and straw, ours wouldn't be accurate enough for haylage or silage.
I'd recommend spending a bit of money and getting proper tests done, dm alone doesn't provide enough information.
Take the guesswork out of it.
I'd say most farmers who don't test their feed would be disappointed with the results.
 
dstig said:
That leads on nicely to the next question how are lads fixed with fodder now as we are heading into the winter and housing period? Did people get a chance to build stocks or buy them over the last few weeks ?
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Closed the gap to about 20% short,made a few bales and bought a few.
Drought broke far too late and we never got going.
Back a serious amount of grass grown this year.
 
At the moment I'd say I'm borderline should have enough based on getting out by mid march which would be my normal stage to be on grass will probably give a bit extra feed over the winter just to stretch it a bit too be safe
 
It's going to take a few years to get back to normal round here,doesn't help when you have some very large herds in the locality,they hoover up any silage they can in a normal year,one has over 3000 head and only farms 900 acres.
 
scoffcruddle said:
It's going to take a few years to get back to normal round here,doesn't help when you have some very large herds in the locality,they hoover up any silage they can in a normal year,one has over 3000 head and only farms 900 acres.
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Spoke to farmer near Denbigh I know, he is buying in maize as his supplie of grass in the clamp us running very low !
 
I bought a few lots of bales of silage a few weeks ago at the local charity auction. It's working out on average at twenty seven euros a bale. I've about a week's worth of 2017 silage left in the back of one pit and about 600 tons of first cut 18 silage in the other pit. I'm not using much silage ATM as most of the cattle here are being fed on for finishing. I'm fairly confident that I have enough feed in stock if we have another spring like last year's one.
 
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