at what point does pit become cheaper than bales

GERMAN ROCKS

so after how many bales per acre is it cheaper to start putting silage it into the pit.

Juniorhurler

I know about four years ago we reckoned @ over eight we would open the pit and put it in there. We only calculated it coz we had 15 acres at the time a few miles away.

Timmaay

Hmmm too many variables to even try answer that question, also have to include how much silage in total (no point building a pit for a 5acre field, nomatter how good a crop is on it), cost of building the pit, cost of storing the effluent runoff, contractor costs (ie use SP or wagon for the silage), then other things like how quick you are going to feed it, with a very low demand there is no point have the face of a pit open and going off if you are only taking one grab a day out of it.

Muckit

I would agree. Anything over 8-10 bales into a pit if you have one. Cut little and often for good quality baled silage. The quality of the bales cut from leafy swards will more than make up for their cost.

Timmaay

Hmm guess I misread that, and didn't assume the pit etc is already there! But anyways, have a 4acre paddock that is gone fairly strong, cover about 2000kg/ha at the minute, ordinarily we'd always cut the likes of that as bales, I'd be tempted to fire it in the pit alongside the rest of the 1st cut in two weeks time, but main issue is that paddock isnt very accessible to the large silage trailers (most certainly not if the weather turns!), and our contractor charges by the acre, so it would end up working out quite expensive. Really need to convince him to buy a wagon :P

Also, what number of bales/acre are on a cover of 2000kg/ha? (sorry, swapping between ha and acres here!)

mf240

Timmaay wrote: »

Hmm guess I misread that, and didn't assume the pit etc is already there! But anyways, have a 4acre paddock that is gone fairly strong, cover about 2000kg/ha at the minute, ordinarily we'd always cut the likes of that as bales, I'd be tempted to fire it in the pit alongside the rest of the 1st cut in two weeks time, but main issue is that paddock isnt very accessible to the large silage trailers (most certainly not if the weather turns!), and our contractor charges by the acre, so it would end up working out quite expensive. Really need to convince him to buy a wagon :P

Also, what number of bales/acre are on a cover of 2000kg/ha? (sorry, swapping between ha and acres here!)

If bales are 800 kgs and 25% dry matter then there would be 10 of them per ha at that cover or 4 per acre.

delaval

Over 5 for me as it would be €50/acre anyting over this pit for me