Bales or pit (dairy only)

royalmeath

Has any dairyman out there gone from pit silage to bales completely. If so hows it working out for you. Do you find cows pulling alot of silage into the passage. Also have you noticed any significant changes in your milk constituents.

mahoney_j

Havnt gone fully to bales but i would give them to thw milking cows only and fr heifer weanlings.I try to get them as good and as dry as i possibly can.Started grass measuring about 2 years ago and will bale anything that goes outside my 21 to 23 day rotation.The key is to not wait where possible for it to bulk up just pull it out wrap it and gey it back into rotation.tested one of these bales earlier and it came back at 83,5 dmd,59% dm and 16.1% prot.Its as good as grazed grass when the cows need to graze it.Housed the cows in 14 nov and solids average the 2 weeks cows were in was 3.87 prot and 4.49 fat and milk yield actually went up(just over 12.5 at grass to 13.6 indoors)Had issues with them pulling silage over the barriers but only small ammounts,They will pull more steamier silage in.Would love to do all bales but there is a lot of work in them

mf240

I make all bales if you chop them and use the diagonal rails they wont pull it in.

With that high dm silage bales are great as you have no secondary fermentation when feeding out. Very dry silage heats like fcuk in a pit.

Lactose in fall and protien in spring seems better butterfat is better too.(there may be other reasons )

Have you a long would they be housed with you royal? Is your silage ground on the home block?

GERMAN ROCKS

i am pit all the way. i think bales are the last word. theres too much work to them. hopping on and off the digger every two seconds to them. its grandto stay up in the digger for 20 minutes until everything is fed. hardest part of the pit is covering it. bales work out very expensive anyway for any sort of a decent cut.

poor farmer

We were always pit ,but about ten years ago we started to make small amount of bales .Now its about 1/2 an 1/2 The pit for bulk /volume ,bales for the start and finish and for any other times of shortage (most of this year)
Bales are more costly ,a pain to feed or handle
but I think quality is better even with the same grass.I think the grass is better preserved in bales and the are usually higher in D.M.

delaval

We changed from big chopper to wagon last year huge difference never precision again......we like to use bales for cows that are milking better quality because they are usually surplus paddocks taken out

Timmaay

mahoney_j wrote: »

.tested one of these bales earlier and it came back at 83,5 dmd,59% dm and 16.1% prot

Wow! The penny is finally dropping with me that I really really really need to use less pit silage and more bales! (in conjunction with better grassland management of course!)

delaval

Timmaay wrote: »

Wow! The penny is finally dropping with me that I really really really need to use less pit silage and more bales! (in conjunction with better grassland management of course!)

Imagine what my jex ladies wiuld do on that kind of rocket fuel

grazeaway

poor farmer wrote: »

We were always pit ,but about ten years ago we started to make small amount of bales .Now its about 1/2 an 1/2 The pit for bulk /volume ,bales for the start and finish and for any other times of shortage (most of this year)
Bales are more costly ,a pain to feed or handle
but I think quality is better even with the same grass.I think the grass is better preserved in bales and the are usually higher in D.M.

Would be in agrrement here. When we were milking full time we used pit only, then started to use bales for any second cuts. Found that using the bales for the smaller fields meant that we didnt have to re-open the pit for second cuts. The bales were ideal for suplemtry feedign but cows would be fed pit silage once in full time.

Not in dairy anymore just sucklers now. Use bales now full time and we have very little waste (have a bit this year as we still have some of last years bales so those at the back of the stack have a few tears in the plastic).

We use chopped bales and a diagonal feed barrier and there is very little pulled onto the slats. If we feed un chopped bales then they usually can pull the silage in alright.


I think the pit v bales debate is very much dependant on you sialge need/usage. If we had more cows or went back to dairy i would put in a new slab. As the other say bales are more expenisive so i would be slow to go to them exclusivly if i had high cow numbers. I reckon the combination of both is the better choice. one single cut of pit silage and then using the bales to clean off any paddocks that have gone too strong.

I have been using bales to clean off a couple strong paddocks for about a year or two now and will be using it more next year. Have my eye on a Khun Bio baler wrapper so that i can do it all my self.

royalmeath

I made all pit the last few years, made bales 4 years ago, mowed it myself and left it down for 2 days
got it rowed, baled and wrapped for 6 euro plus the vat with a mchale fusion. I have to say the bales were savage
They were haevy as fcuk, and there wasnt an ounce of waist on them. The only downside I found was the cows were inclined to pull
silage in on to the passage

Farmer Pudsey

mahoney_j wrote: »

.tested one of these bales earlier and it came back at 83,5 dmd,59% dm and 16.1% prot.

If you cost it if you can make bales at 30 DM @75+DMD and at greater than 14% protein . Take a bale @ 650 kgs it will have 210kgs DM costing 20/bale that is working out at 100/ton. It is very hard ( not impossible)to get the same quality from pit silage and you will have less waste. The feed above if the bales were 500kgs there is 300kgs [EMAIL="DM@16.1prot"]DM@16.1prot[/EMAIL] cost it at 40/bale.

Tipp Man

Bales all the way here - for the last 10 years or so

Would find it very hard to go back to pit now for many reasons

I should add that hardly none of our milk is produced indoors though

freedominacup

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If you cost it if you can make bales at 30 DM @75+DMD and at greater than 14% protein . Take a bale @ 650 kgs it will have 210kgs DM costing 20/bale that is working out at 100/ton. It is very hard ( not impossible)to get the same quality from pit silage and you will have less waste. The feed above if the bales were 500kgs there is 300kgs DM@16.1prot cost it at 40/bale.

If you send a wagon or presicion chop into the same crop you would get the same quality. Nothing magical happens because it's put in a bale. I would be v. disappointed if I didn't make pit silage with a DMD greater than 75% our target is always 80+. This year was 77DMD 15.2% protein and 11.8ME on first cut second cut was slightly higher ME and DMD in a pit no waste to speak of. Pit has a min of two new sheets + side sheets and held down with truck tyres. Started giving bales to dry cows today and I really wish I didn't have to. The hassle and labour involved is painful. I did use bales exclusively for 2 winters but never again.

delaval

For some reason when we switch from bales to pit protein drops, but not as much with wagon though it still drops. I just wish there was an easier way to handle large numbers of bales.

mahoney_j

delaval wrote: »

For some reason when we switch from bales to pit protein drops, but not as much with wagon though it still drops. I just wish there was an easier way to handle large numbers of bales.

There is delaval a diet feeder and one of those tanco grabs that takes the net and plastic off without getting off the tractor

t

mahoney_j

delaval wrote: »

Imagine what my jex ladies wiuld do on that kind of rocket fuel

Not as good as my pedigree hol freisans delaval!!!!

delaval

Yea I can fit 2 in each cubicle......very snug! Seriously good feed though.
Have you worked out how much grass you utilised last year as a matter of interest?

mahoney_j

Havnt finalised figures yet but somewhere beteween 11.5 to 12,Would be aiming for around the 14 mark though as i have a dry farm(or at least it was till this year)and have nearly 85 % of it reseeded in the last 5 years.Sorry that was what ive grown will do up utilised figure

delaval

For anyone's info
2200kg
- meals/cow
+ ms/cow x 6.4
x sr/1000
= tones grass utilised

mf240

delaval wrote: »

For anyone's info
2200kg
- meals/cow
+ ms/cow x 6.4
x sr/1000
= tones grass utilised

Genuine question

is that milk solids /cow by 6.4

delaval

Yes