Silage Analysis'

hedger7050

Member
BASE UK Member
What grass seed mixture are you planting to produce this silage please @hedger7050?

The main silage block is all 2 year red clover and rye grass leys, not sure on exact mix off the top of my head but I will find out. Then we cut any grazing paddocks that are ahead of the cows which is all 3-4 year grazing and white clover leys. All seed is through green farm seeds. Usually clamp the lucerne in with the grass but managed to make hay out of it this year so far so will be interesting to see how it feeds.
 

jerseycowsman

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
cornwall
We're cutting every 4.5 weeks here when possible this is first cut harvested on the 13th April
View attachment 539230
Second cut hasn't been analysed yet and third cut only went in the clamp on Monday.
I'm not doubting the quality of your silage, it looks great. But there is no fibre in it, how's that gonna help with butterfat production that Arla need at the moment?
We purposefully left our first cut very late this year, to get fibre in it to get our fats up. I cannot see how more frequent cutting is gonna help fat production?
 

More to life

Member
Location
Somerset
I'm not doubting the quality of your silage, it looks great. But there is no fibre in it, how's that gonna help with butterfat production that Arla need at the moment?
We purposefully left our first cut very late this year, to get fibre in it to get our fats up. I cannot see how more frequent cutting is gonna help fat production?
You get higher forage intakes and feed less straights butter fats will rise
 

pappuller

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
M6 Hard shoulder
I'm not doubting the quality of your silage, it looks great. But there is no fibre in it, how's that gonna help with butterfat production that Arla need at the moment?
We purposefully left our first cut very late this year, to get fibre in it to get our fats up. I cannot see how more frequent cutting is gonna help fat production?
We've found that we need to add shed loads of fibre to v low fibre silage and I would think a % rocket fuel silage would come straight out the back end if not balanced up
 

Clay52

Member
Location
Outer Space
I'm not doubting the quality of your silage, it looks great. But there is no fibre in it, how's that gonna help with butterfat production that Arla need at the moment?
We purposefully left our first cut very late this year, to get fibre in it to get our fats up. I cannot see how more frequent cutting is gonna help fat production?

40% NDF is plenty of fibre. Means you don't need to feed as much grain and can make high production on a cheap ration.

To get fat kg you want liters and a high fat test. You need high quality digestible fibre for that. Mature feed gets you high fibre( that isn't very digestible) and a high fat test but kills the liters unless you throw a heap of grain at them.
 

Maxxum-man

Member
Location
North west
I'm not doubting the quality of your silage, it looks great. But there is no fibre in it, how's that gonna help with butterfat production that Arla need at the moment?
We purposefully left our first cut very late this year, to get fibre in it to get our fats up. I cannot see how more frequent cutting is gonna help fat production?
Weather held us off 2nd cut for a week and quality may have dropped a little but I will be thankful for the fibre, when feeding a mainly silage only diet we need structure to keep the silage inside and help maintain fats
 
Location
West Wales
We haven't had analysis back yet but I know it won't be anywhere near as dry as others. If I had it 22/23 I would be happy. balancing wet is cheap compared to trying to balance low energy when we've waited for the weather
 

Crusty

Member
I'll not lie our fats have dropped since we've started feeding this year's 1st and 2nd cut but we're only feeding 35% forage diet but it has allowed us to feed a cheap blend and our total milk solids are higher which Is what we'll be paid on come Jan 2018. I think the key to high quality silage it high dm, low dm acidic silage is a nightmare imho
 

hedger7050

Member
BASE UK Member
I'm not doubting the quality of your silage, it looks great. But there is no fibre in it, how's that gonna help with butterfat production that Arla need at the moment?
We purposefully left our first cut very late this year, to get fibre in it to get our fats up. I cannot see how more frequent cutting is gonna help fat production?

We've made hay out of the lucerne so far this year and will make another at least 2 cuts if not 3 into hay or haylige and usually feed at 1.5 kg a head and we're around 3.8-4 fats on 10000 litres so the more frequent cutting with higher quality suits us as we find we get much better intakes and can feed less conc. with the higher protein in the grass.
 

bigw

Member
Location
Scotland
Two samples from the same core, one done by an independent company and the other by a feed company.
DSC01225.JPG
DSC01226.JPG
 

Sylution

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
Screenshot_2017-06-26-18-35-10-1.png

This is the silage analysis for 1st cut. Cut on 4th May. Had a dry easterly wind at the time. Made the silage dry for tine of year. 2nd cut 2 weeks today will not be so dry due to fog lingering all day nearly when harvesting. Will aim for 3rd cut before Royal welsh show and then a 4th at start of September. 1st cut 2 weeks earlier than normal this year, but yeild was similar to usual.
 
Location
West Wales
Had rep on phone just now.

Took a sample from top because it was a weekend when we had sheet off

Me 10.9
Dm 24.5
Dvalue 68

I think that's what he told me anyway! Not too worried at that considering it wasn't A core and I know it wasn't sent straight away because I kept forgetting to do it so it can only be better!
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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