Silage thread

_Brian

Waiting for contractor here but he's under serious pressure after the bad two weeks weather. Ours should have been wrapped two weeks ago but with rain just couldn't be done.

AntrimGlens

Last 15 acres for the year here dropped last night. Three men on our road still haven't anything in the pit or baled yet. It was only buttercups docks and stem to begin with so god only knows what it will be like when they eventually cut it.

Parishlad

Last bit cut here yesterday evening too. Was hoping to leave it until tomorrow afternoon to bale but contractor is swamped so it will be baled late this evening. He wanted to leave it to Friday but there's no way I'm taking the chance on it staying fine till then.
Will be glad to get finished for the year. Next thing we'll know we'll be feeding it out again....

selectamatic

The neighbor's 20ft rows made using a farendlose side delivery hay turner, makes a great job outta some of the small fields that many modern balers struggle with.

freedominacup

Third cut in. Cover in the morning. Sister heading back to the UK tomorrow so a bit of a send off for her tonight.

Greengrass1

That's this yrs silage done.
1200 bales on the kitty.
At most we'll use 800. Won't have as much suplus next yr so well be just about be able to make about 700-800 that along with the 400 spare will do us fine for winter 2016. Well see what 2017 brings then if we need to take on more land or not
Contractor will be hete early in the morning to blacken the 30 acres with 500 t of dung

She'll grow some grass then

frazzledhome

Greengrass1 wrote: »

That's this yrs silage done.
1200 bales on the kitty.
At most we'll use 800. Won't have as much suplus next yr so well be just about be able to make about 700-800 that along with the 400 spare will do us fine for winter 2016. Well see what 2017 brings then if we need to take on more land or not
Contractor will be hete early in the morning to blacken the 30 acres with 500 t of dung

She'll grow some grass then

Silage finished on home farm today. Baled early this an and all in the stack by 2 pm. Want to spread dung on fields but contractor flat out at combining.

Going to knock third cut on out farm tomorrow and bale Mon am. Wasn't going to but weather forecast has changed and rain promised for Sunday seems to be pushed back

Greengrass1

frazzledhome wrote: »

Silage finished on home farm today. Baled early this an and all in the stack by 2 pm. Want to spread dung on fields but contractor flat out at combining.

Going to knock third cut on out farm tomorrow and bale Mon am. Wasn't going to but weather forecast has changed and rain promised for Sunday seems to be pushed back

This lad has a shiny new muck spreader so he's dying to give it a run.

whelan2

was up the silage fields we cut last week today, unreal growth for the week.

Timmaay

thought I was all done but the neighbours field I have for grazing is mad strong one part, so will get another 5acres off it! Trying to find a home for all it the biggest problem ha.

Limestone Cowboy

Timmaay wrote: »

thought I was all done but the neighbours field I have for grazing is mad strong one part, so will get another 5acres off it! Trying to find a home for all it the biggest problem ha.

Never forget 2013!

selectamatic

just a couple of days ago I was on the look out for a few handy bales to buy when things are plentiful as a bad winter can change the market drastically, anyways a man asked me 25 euro in the field for silage bales made using a 15 year old krone baler I told him he'd want to check the calendar as going by my one we were in 2015 not 2013!

freedominacup

selectamatic wrote: »

just a couple of days ago I was on the look out for a few handy bales to buy when things are plentiful as a bad winter can change the market drastically, anyways a man asked me 25 euro in the field for silage bales made using a 15 year old krone baler I told him he'd want to check the calendar as going by my one we were in 2015 not 2013!

It's been done to death here but it's always good to get a new perspective on things. What do you think it's costing you per bale to make silage? 25euro is apparently very high so what would be value? Allow 7-8 bales per acre from the likes of a fusion because above that you'd have to have questions about quality.

frazzledhome

freedominacup wrote: »

It's been done to death here but it's always good to get a new perspective on things. What do you think it's costing you per bale to make silage? 25euro is apparently very high so what would be value? Allow 7-8 bales per acre from the likes of a fusion because above that you'd have to have questions about quality.

Bales costing €18 here being brought 30km to home. 700-800 fresh weight at 40% dm is c300 kg/dm so 6c per kg plus fert and land

visatorro

what baler is making Bales 800 kg?

freedominacup

frazzledhome wrote: »

Bales costing €18 here being brought 30km to home. 700-800 fresh weight at 40% dm is c300 kg/dm so 6c per kg plus fert and land

Just to clarify. Mow,tedd, rake, bale, wrap, plastic and haulage comes to 18euro. Land charge and fert would increase price?

selectamatic

We're at around the 13-14 per bale with the current silage plan now mind you that's factoring in all costs. We have cut back on silage production mainly due to a slight cutback in herd size in pursuit of an improvement in herd quality and also due to fertilizer costs. Its something we had thought about doing for a while and I suppose the cost of fertilizer was the final push we needed. Our contractor wouldn't be the cheapest around but the quality and size of the bales justify the cost. We could get a cheaper contractor but the bale quality varies greatly (great one field, too small and not enough plastic in another) so we stick with consistency. Our draw lengths are small so costs aren't impacted too heavily. A 30km draw round here would be unheard of, but that can be offset by the fact that contractor prices are slightly dearer here in the west due to the smaller operations when compared with other parts of the country. In the near future we plan to return to mowing ourselves as both a form of cost reduction and increasing independence i.e upping the chances of the job being done when we want. That said when we were at a more intensive stage we always found that anything for sale around the 20 euro mark or a touch below as long as the bale was well packed and chopped, was either equal or better value then renting land for meadow especially since fertilizer has gone so dear.

freedominacup

selectamatic wrote: »

We're at around the 13-14 per bale with the current silage plan now mind you that's factoring in all costs. We have cut back on silage production mainly due to a slight cutback in herd size in pursuit of an improvement in herd quality and also due to fertilizer costs. Its something we had thought about doing for a while and I suppose the cost of fertilizer was the final push we needed. Our contractor wouldn't be the cheapest around but the quality and size of the bales justify the cost. We could get a cheaper contractor but the bale quality varies greatly (great one field, too small and not enough plastic in another) so we stick with consistency. Our draw lengths are small so costs aren't impacted too heavily. A 30km draw round here would be unheard of, but that can be offset by the fact that contractor prices are slightly dearer here in the west due to the smaller operations when compared with other parts of the country. In the near future we plan to return to mowing ourselves as both a form of cost reduction and increasing independence i.e upping the chances of the job being done when we want. That said when we were at a more intensive stage we always found that anything for sale around the 20 euro mark or a touch below as long as the bale was well packed and chopped, was either equal or better value then renting land for meadow especially since fertilizer has gone so dear.

Can you breakdown the 13-14 euro cost? What have you included?

Timmaay

freedominacup wrote: »

Just to clarify. Mow,tedd, rake, bale, wrap, plastic and haulage comes to 18euro. Land charge and fert would increase price?

Buying in this year has cost me 18 and 20euros a bale, wrapped and all, one lot dropped in the yard, the other I had to draw myself from 2miles down the road. I take it I should continue as is for as long as I can doing this so ha?

frazzledhome

visatorro wrote: »

what baler is making Bales 800 kg?

Fusion and JD, all loads weighed so accurate. Ranges from 700-850 fresh with dry silage chopped.

frazzledhome

freedominacup wrote: »

Just to clarify. Mow,tedd, rake, bale, wrap, plastic and haulage comes to 18euro. Land charge and fert would increase price?

Land and fert not inc

freedominacup

Timmaay wrote: »

Buying in this year has cost me 18 and 20euros a bale, wrapped and all, one lot dropped in the yard, the other I had to draw myself from 2miles down the road. I take it I should continue as is for as long as I can doing this so ha?

What were you buying though Tim? They're not know as lucky bags for nothing. Personally I'd be buying straw and grain with the same budget.

Timmaay

freedominacup wrote: »

What were you buying though Tim? They're not know as lucky bags for nothing. Personally I'd be buying straw and grain with the same budget.

Saw both crops standing.

selectamatic

freedominacup wrote: »

Can you breakdown the 13-14 euro cost? What have you included?

Mow, Bale and wrap 11 euro per bale all in with the contractor, averaging 10 bales to the acre (not a believer in mowing in may/early june if crop isn't fit).
CAN at 1.5 bags to the acre at a cost of 22 euro working out roughly at 2.20 euro per bale.
Allowing a euro per bale for draw leaves all in at 14.20 however it is usually much less, considering main bulk is in fields adjacent to the yard and no draw exceeds 2km so I would have draw costs closer to 50c per bale.
Thus leaving costs at 13-14 per bale depending on where exactly the bales are made.
We don't allow for slurry/muck however this is done by ourselves not contracted and it has to be spread so it is not a cost directly related to silage.
If renting land particularly in this locality (roscommon mayo boarder) it gets to the point that you would be aswell off buying silage as 20 euro is the price of them and that's good quality chopped fusion bales smaller ones are going less.
"Lucky bags" are going considerably less, last week locally a so called "tangler" bought small bales left over from last year off another farmer for a cost of 10 euro per bale! in other words covering what it cost to make them in the first place that said the farmer could not guarantee the quality of them and he simply wanted them out of the yard to make space for this years.
Next year we hope to mow ourselves in order to lower costs further however this will depend on the reduction in price by the contractor as if it isn't enough of a reduction it may make more sense to continue on as is.

frazzledhome

freedominacup wrote: »

It's been done to death here but it's always good to get a new perspective on things. What do you think it's costing you per bale to make silage? 25euro is apparently very high so what would be value? Allow 7-8 bales per acre from the likes of a fusion because above that you'd have to have questions about quality.

At anything above 5 bales its better value to pit the silage IMV. I aim for 3-4 bales per acre with 3-4 cuts, usually 3 as would be grazed in Spring and also would build high covers for winter grazing with weanling heifers.

selectamatic

Very true but farming in the south east and farming in the north west are two very different things.

frazzledhome

freedominacup wrote: »

Just to clarify. Mow,tedd, rake, bale, wrap, plastic and haulage comes to 18euro. Land charge and fert would increase price?

I know this land I'm mowed today grew 14 tonnes dm last year. Lets assume the same this year but it should do better.
Off the top of my head it got
2* urea
2* 18/6/12
2* Cut sward
2* SNet
And will now get 2*Can
It got 3000 gls of slurry but I'll count the fert element as a zero sum offset against spreading cost

For easy counting can we say €500/ ha for fert

The rent is €469/ha

At 14 tonne fert is 3.5c/kg
Rent is the same.

So with 6c/ kg for mow, tedd, bale wrap and haul

That gives 13c/kg dm

Will someone check the math there?
I'm wrecked hitting charger after mowing all day

frazzledhome

selectamatic wrote: »

Very true but farming in the south east and farming in the north west are two very different things.

Why? Don't say weather

selectamatic

frazzledhome wrote: »

Why? Don't say weather

For a number of reasons but yes weather is most certainly one of them (Not all the time but in general). My list of reasons in order of importance would be
1.Soil type and quality and trafficability.
2.Length of growing season (could be considered weather)
3.Weather (amounts of rainfall, mean soil temps and amounts of sunshine)
4.History of superior infrastructure (silage slabs, sheds yards etc..)
5.Average farm size and average contracting costs.

While weather is a subjective difference it really is quite a vast difference at times. Around here the number of fine days in July could be counted on one hand where as the midlands and southeast had a much easier time of it, that said it was by no means a scorcher down there but still it certainly wasn't as bad as the north west. Also this year saw a very late arrival of spring growth in the north west with the result that many first cuts simply weren't ready around the usual time (1st cut during the leaving cert is the general rule of thumb). I wouldn't take this as a oh farming in the west is tougher/lends itself to be less profitable type of post but it is most certainly different and so should be approached differently. If a man was thinking of four cuts around here he'd want to be planning on taking the 4th one exceptionally late on in the year as the growth simply doesn't get going quick enough around here. Also we have yet to have a problem with drought something that can make farming harder in the south east in prolonged dry periods during summers (for example the summer of 2013).

Farmer Pudsey

Selmatic, too much emphasise is put on ''it will not work on my farm''. Now reseeding and quality is not the be all and end all either. However silage quality and quanitity is paramount especially in long winter area's. With some farms a straw & ration òption is often more viable than poor quality silage.

In wet area's farmers do not relizise the importance of P&K. P&K and PH are much more important that N on wetter land. However you need to get the balance right. In this country for cut silage is not really an option. The earlier you cut silage or even hay the better. However few relize the impact that bale silage has made on wetter land types. On the other hand lot of farmers in these area's are not using bale silage to its full advantage