Silage

[Woolgatherer]

Does anyone here know when the first silage was made? Talking to in laws and friends the other day, all farming folk, we got talking about silage. We were trying to work out when it was "invented", where it was first made etc. we can't remember anyone speaking about it being made before the fifties. Now that the question has come up, we need to know, it's driving us mad!

 

[jonny]

From hearing old tales I think it was invented by accident well over a hundred years ago where a heap of grass fermented and the cattle liked the taste of it

 

[JD-Kid]

think older than that
can recall silage pic's of grass just being stacked in heaps (early wagon's HAHAHA) and grandfather said about stacking little bales in a pit covering them maybe with lime they cocked up used wire tied bales and were a bitch to get out next time used untreated twine worked well

http://ftic.co.il/Forage Manual History-en.php

how they come across it ummm any ones guess if i had a wild guess maybe a hard season to make hay and they had stored alot of cabbage for there own use .. hard winter could not let the animals die so feed them the pickeled cabbage a few forward thinkers seen the animals milked better etc
keep in mind early hay makeing and silage would have been the same cut the grass and stack it so realy no diffrence in handleing even early balers crops brought to the baler

 

[Derrick Hughes]

1805 ish

Dad made it in a heap in the field with a Paterson Buckrake

 

[Kevtherev]

I think it was invented in Sweden or Austria?
Grandad put up the first silage pit in the area in 1960.first silage put in with a power major and twose big tine buckrake.
All the neighbours thought he was mad!!
How wrong they were.

 

[Philip Watkins]

1805 ish

Dad made it in a heap in the field with a Paterson Buckrake

Your Dad was an old man if he was about in 1805

 

[roscoe erf]

Your Dad was an old man if he was about in 1805

makes ft old too

 

[smcapstick]

Ancient Egypt. They filled holes in the ground.

 

[grumpy]

1805 ish

Dad made it in a heap in the field with a Paterson Buckrake

think you will find thats when the word silage entered the dictionary,preserving food stuffs by fermentation goes back to ancient times.but if the question is when did silage making become popular in the uk then mid century.

 

[Exfarmer]

Certainly Henry Stephens book of the farm talks about it as an accepted practice in Eastern Europe. My book is dated 1876, but is third edition

 

[#ctscotfood]

Does anyone here know when the first silage was made? Talking to in laws and friends the other day, all farming folk, we got talking about silage. We were trying to work out when it was "invented", where it was first made etc. we can't remember anyone speaking about it being made before the fifties. Now that the question has come up, we need to know, it's driving us mad!

It was invented in the 1940's by Maitland or Mike Mackie at Westertoun farm Aberdeenshire to feed his Aberdeen Angus cattle year round. Innovation is obviously in the Mackie blood as his grandson started to make ice cream and now the present generation are producing crisps and chocolate! Grandson also called Maitland who sadly died last year of cancer, was the first to see the potential of windfarms. All electricty on the farm is generated by their windmills