Silage inventory

[Farmer_1994]

So common idea around here has been to have 6 months carry over on grass and maize silage in case of emergency. Short story is, coming into this crop year with almost no carry over. We will be pushing our carry over to a year from now on if we can get it.

Does anyone else run 6m to 1y of silage inventory carry over?

 

[livestock 1]

I never have any in real terms.
If I do have any I have bought more than my carry over

 

[Farmer_1994]

I never have any in real terms.
If I do have any I have bought more than my carry over

Carry over has saved us a few times in the last 5 years, couldn’t do without it. Reason for going to 1 year of carry over is if we have a wet fall again like last year anytime soon we can just take the maize for high moisture grain when the ground freezes and not bother mucking fields up for silage.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Not sure about carry over as in X months of silage but I like to have silage by me to buffer feed later in the summer/autumn so that I don’t have to start this years silage until winter starts, that way I’m fairly confident I can get through winter ok, even in years like 2018.
I certainly wouldn’t like to be in a position where I needed to feed this years silage to get me through the summer.

 

[Farmer_1994]

Not sure about carry over as in X months of silage but I like to have silage by me to buffer feed later in the summer/autumn so that I don’t have to start this years silage until winter starts, that way I’m fairly confident I can get through winter ok, even in years like 2018.
I certainly wouldn’t like to be in a position where I needed to feed this years silage to get me through the summer.

we will need to start feeding our first cut in September. Usually try not to feed it till january.

 

[livestock 1]

Carry over has saved us a few times in the last 5 years, couldn’t do without it. Reason for going to 1 year of carry over is if we have a wet fall again like last year anytime soon we can just take the maize for high moisture grain when the ground freezes and not bother mucking fields up for silage.

I always used to fill a pit with brewers grains in August/September as an insurance policy when it was cheap.
That hasn’t happened for a few years now either

 

[Dead Rabbits]

We like to have 6 months corn silage in the pits when we harvest. It doesn’t always work out that way and our feeding amounts vary drastically due to grazing. This year we will likely only have 2-3 months. But 6 is typically the goal. It also allows better fermentation which makes it more digestible.

In our area all the harvested forage is junk so dairy quality forage is uneconomical to import. In a drought it’s even less economically feasible.

100k worth of silage sat in the pit can look cheap compared to coming on a truck.

 

[deleted user 837354]

You can't never have too much silage or hay/haylage stacked up.

 

[willie waver]

I've always made 8 months worth of forage in the expectation of a 7 month winter, the experience of 1985/86 made me never want to go through that again. worked fine up until the last decade when we've had 3 or 4 years when 8 months wasn't enough

 

[O'Reilly]

So common idea around here has been to have 6 months carry over on grass and maize silage in case of emergency. Short story is, coming into this crop year with almost no carry over. We will be pushing our carry over to a year from now on if we can get it.

Does anyone else run 6m to 1y of silage inventory carry over?

No, but starting to think that way. Like a few here, this is our third year of summer drought, and no doubt once we have adjusted our mindset to regular drought, we'll have a summer washout, which will also need a forage reserve to get through. Have been using by products like brewers grains to get by, but you are reliant on buying cheap, so a forage reserve is more stable, it's just the infrastructure to store it that is the problem

 

[Farmer_1994]

You can't never have too much silage or hay/haylage stacked up.

Fully agree with that!

 

[Princess Pooper]

We used to run with about 3 months carry over but 2018 drought left us with none and we were not able to catch up last year as we lost the final cut to the weather. Not comfortable at all having nothing - when we had awful weather in June last year we had nothing other than straw and molasses to keep the cows in on. Bought some extra hay this year and will buy more.

 

[7610 super q]

Facebook always seems awash with fodder at way below COP...... ?‍

Nothing like piece of mind having your own supply though.

 

[Farmer_1994]

No, but starting to think that way. Like a few here, this is our third year of summer drought, and no doubt once we have adjusted our mindset to regular drought, we'll have a summer washout, which will also need a forage reserve to get through. Have been using by products like brewers grains to get by, but you are reliant on buying cheap, so a forage reserve is more stable, it's just the infrastructure to store it that is the problem

We have a lot of wide open spaces so all we do is put concrete pads down for drive over silage piles. Very flexible with how much feed you can store then. And cheapest up front cost.

 

[Chae1]

I always used to fill a pit with brewers grains in August/September as an insurance policy when it was cheap.
That hasn’t happened for a few years now either

Doing that here. Draff tatties and some £7 bales of haylage to stop it running away! Tatties now £6/t

 

[HarryB97]

I always hope to have a carry over but normally it doesn't happen and I end up buying bales off neighbours. Trying a few fields of lucerne this year to combat all this dry weather, hopefully it'll work well and I can decrease my temporary grass area as well as buying in less protein.

 

[supercow]

Where u from? I have some third cut u might be interested in ??

 

[livestock 1]

Doing that here. Draff tatties and some £7 bales of haylage to stop it running away! Tatties now £6/t

That’s the job how much is the draff?

 

[Alex72]

Doing that here. Draff tatties and some £7 bales of haylage to stop it running away! Tatties now £6/t

What’s the draff costing?

 

[Chae1]

What’s the draff costing?

£25/t but we aren't far from distilleries.