New Beef House

yesit does, plus there is the cost of concreate silage pit to concider meaning bales for us worked out cheaper BUT wrap is a lot dearer now n making bales actuly taught me a lot about clamp silage, in fact the silage clamp in my avatot had no concreate at all n that turned out to be some of the best silage i ever made

Not even a concrete floor?
 

Walterp

Member
Location
Pembrokeshire
Clamp silage using a self propelled and team will use roughly 28l/acre diesel cut to clamp here. I use 8.5 l/acre cut to stacked for round bales.

I do all my own approximately 100 acres, or 1200 bales, with no contractors. The baler and wrapper purchase cost was £12000 total, and requires about £500 maintenance per annum.

Wrap and net costs around £2700. Total, including diesel comes to less than £4000 from cutting to bales stacked.

Contractors fee are what, £55/acre to rake, chop, cart and buckrake?? So before diesel, that's £5.5k. Diesel adds roughly £2k. So each year I save £3500. (excluding paying for machinery)

With bales, properly wrapped and handled, there is no waste at all. What percentage is waste from a clamp?

With my own equipment, I can go when the crop and weather suits me. I don't have the capital investment to build a clamp. The analysis of baled silage is as good as clamp when done correctly. The chop length of bales is what the cow is used to eating, and is also what current thinking about optimum fibre length. Clamp is too short.

So to answer your question..... If you rely on contractors for everything, probably.

If you can bale and wrap it yourself, then there is a very big saving to be made going for bales instead of clamp (in my opinion;))

Some studies suggest that clamp silage can incur up to 20% waste, but no farmer has ever admitted this high a figure. Depending on the design of the clamp and its use, waste can easily be 10 across the shoulders/top and when feeding at self feed barriers or ring feeders?

One thing you haven't mentioned is the possibility of saving even more money by making hay, if the weather is fine - cuts out the net entirely.
 

Sir loin

Member
Location
North Yorkshire
Some studies suggest that clamp silage can incur up to 20% waste, but no farmer has ever admitted this high a figure. Depending on the design of the clamp and its use, waste can easily be 10 across the shoulders/top and when feeding at self feed barriers or ring feeders?

One thing you haven't mentioned is the possibility of saving even more money by making hay, if the weather is fine - cuts out the net entirely.
Walter lets move this thread on a bit and ask is baled hay/silage better for your stock than precision chopped clamp silage. My gut feeling would be yes it is but I cannot back this up!
 

Walterp

Member
Location
Pembrokeshire
Walter lets move this thread on a bit and ask is baled hay/silage better for your stock than precision chopped clamp silage. My gut feeling would be yes it is but I cannot back this up!
Well, perhaps you can now - we moved from our own clamp operation, to a contractor's SP, to ordinary bales, and then to Fusion chopped bales. Chop length in the SP was a real problem for us because:
1. clamp consolidation was difficult to achieve despite careful buckraking and rolling. Result was some mould (which we never had before,. or since, in either clamp or bales), and;
2. cows were more content with having to chew on longer fibre, so that it took longer to go thru' 'em. That is, they say, better for the cow; in any event it seemed to slow 'em down a bit, which is what you are trying to achieve with a beef cow. It is, of course, the opposite of what my dairy farmer neighbours are seeking to achieve.
 

DrDunc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Dunsyre
I thought that the short chop length was driven by what was needed to consolidate the clamp fast, and benefits speed of operation, not what was best fir the livestock.

Chopped bales or forage wagon length is more the length cows eat when grazing (if it ever grows).

Dairy cattle rations have straw included with clamp precision chopped silage to increase fibre length, dry matter, and introduce a "scratching" effect upon the rumen to stimulate digestion. Are these effects not similar to what is achieved with longer chop length?
 

DrDunc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Dunsyre
I know this is an old thread but planning a suckler shed similar to @DrDunc shed. How many cows will you keep in her comfortably? 100ft x 40ft isn’t it?
40 adults is comfortable without bullying at the feed barrier in my shed.
That's 650/750 kg Shorthorns

There are recommendation guides for how much space cattle need web housed. Somebody on here will one what they are I'm sure.
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
Clamp silage using a self propelled and team will use roughly 28l/acre diesel cut to clamp here. I use 8.5 l/acre cut to stacked for round bales.

I do all my own approximately 100 acres, or 1200 bales, with no contractors. The baler and wrapper purchase cost was £12000 total, and requires about £500 maintenance per annum.

Wrap and net costs around £2700. Total, including diesel comes to less than £4000 from cutting to bales stacked.

Contractors fee are what, £55/acre to rake, chop, cart and buckrake?? So before diesel, that's £5.5k. Diesel adds roughly £2k. So each year I save £3500. (excluding paying for machinery)

With bales, properly wrapped and handled, there is no waste at all. What percentage is waste from a clamp?

With my own equipment, I can go when the crop and weather suits me. I don't have the capital investment to build a clamp. The analysis of baled silage is as good as clamp when done correctly. The chop length of bales is what the cow is used to eating, and is also what current thinking about optimum fibre length. Clamp is too short.

So to answer your question..... If you rely on contractors for everything, probably.

If you can bale and wrap it yourself, then there is a very big saving to be made going for bales instead of clamp (in my opinion;))
the 120k for the combi wrapper would go a long way towards a clamp and possibly a forage wagon if you wanted to carry on doing it all yourself.
I assume you have at least 1 helper? which you could juggle mowing, tedding rakeing and clamp work with. I realise lifting the sheet isn't as easy as just starting the baler again mind.

i'm a bale man myself but I can see a forage wagon being a "compromise" keeping the process in house and removing a lot of the plastic problem. we do roughly 1k bales across 3 cuts so obviously aren't going to change the process soon.
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
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this is our cattle shed. 51 ft + cantilever each 30ft pen easily holds 25 sucklers. you have enough feeding space if its silage there nearly all time, not enough if your putting a dribble of corn as they cant all feed. our shed is 120ft long and will easily hold 100. 16ft to eaves, its about right, any higher getting a bit open but lower any you cant stack straw 4 high.
scrape the front 15ft about every week with the bucket.
2 gates means you can pen every group of cattle back separately and then use the whole length front to sort them (we have a lift in race system)
imo going much wider with the shed is wasted unless you get to like 90ft to make full use of 2 feed fences. as 60-70ft is too much for 1 feed line but doesn't utilise 2.
mucking out you can put 1 pens worth of cattle on the passage and clean their pen, then repeat with the next, never muddling them up.
its not at all tight mucking out through front either, I don't see a benefit of being able to do whole shed at 1ce.

I fancy making pit silage in 1 bay, don't go too high as only 4" panels on 100x100x10 box
might do a bay on 150 panels just so I could put 2m of silage in, could face feed?
 
Last edited:

aled1590

Member
Location
N.wales
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this is our cattle shed. 51 ft + cantilever each 30ft pen easily holds 25 sucklers. you have enough feeding space if its silage there nearly all time, not enough if your putting a dribble of corn as they cant all feed. our shed is 120ft long and will easily hold 100. 16ft to eaves, its about right, any higher getting a bit open but lower any you cant stack straw 4 high.
scrape the front 15ft about every week with the bucket.
2 gates means you can pen every group of cattle back separately and then use the whole length front to sort them (we have a lift in race system)
imo going much wider with the shed is wasted unless you get to like 90ft to make full use of 2 feed fences. as 60-70ft is too much for 1 feed line but doesn't utilise 2.
mucking out you can put 1 pens worth of cattle on the passage and clean their pen, then repeat with the next, never muddling them up.
its not at all tight mucking out through front either, I don't see a benefit of being able to do whole shed at 1ce.

I fancy making pit silage in 1 bay, don't go too high as only 4" panels on 100x100x10 box
might do a bay on 150 panels just so I could put 2m of silage in, could face feed?
Smart looking shed! Is it suckler cows you keep in it? I’m trying to decide what kind of manure handling facility to construct at end of a cow shed that’ll eventually be built. Either a below ground level pit with entry ramp to empty, or a flat floor with panels around sides. First option will hold a lot more sh#t but expensive and can’t extend shed if need be one day, second option much cheaper, could easily extend and also be used for storage when it’s not full. How do you handle it in your shed and is it dry FYM or semi solid stuff? Tia @dannewhouse
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
i scrape the front out about 3 weeks after cows go in, then 2 weeks then weekly (with bucket far too solid for scraper) into trailer and straight to an arable field. total shed is mucked out every 2 month or just over and taken straight to field in trailers.

it was once far too wet to get near land so I mucked out and heaped it up in front of shed you will get a fare amount of muck if you did an above ground pad, with panels if you wanted.

I do feed drier silage to reduce straw usage though.
 

fox

Member
Shed looks great! [emoji106] nice having the back panels flush. How are the dividing panels fixed at the T junction? Is the angle bolted right through the panel or fixed into the panel itself?
 

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