New silage pit ?

Matty6270

We have been doing round bale for years but it's to costly now. We have d old pit there,the floor is good enough for dos year but we have no tank in for the drainage off the pit. Would a 900 gallon tank do the job? Don't want to spend a hole lot of money but something to get me away,we put in around 35 acres

Sam Kade

900 gallon would be too small, there are guidelines on the teagasc website for the capacity for silage effluent.

stanflt

Matty6270 wrote: »

We have been doing round bale for years but it's to costly now. We have d old pit there,the floor is good enough for dos year but we have no tank in for the drainage off the pit. Would a 900 gallon tank do the job? Don't want to spend a hole lot of money but something to get me away,we put in around 35 acres

Bales are much cheaper than pit and easier to make better quality silage- it really bugs me why lads are obsessed with making really heavy cuts- it's false economy

Less waste feeding out with bales

Matty6270

stanflt wrote: »

Bales are much cheaper than pit and easier to make better quality silage- it really bugs me why lads are obsessed with making really heavy cuts- it's false economy

Less waste feeding out with bales

I think you may be wrong. When you count your time stacking bales,drawing them all winter,having to buy expensive plastic,and the silage not as good. Instead it's put in for you at 85 per acre and just cover it. You feed a lot quicker and a lot cleaner.

mahoney_j

stanflt wrote: »

Bales are much cheaper than pit and easier to make better quality silage- it really bugs me why lads are obsessed with making really heavy cuts- it's false economy

Less waste feeding out with bales

Agree with that but if going for bulk sp all the way ,like u don't know why lads go for bulk ,quality silage gives u options heavy stemmy crap didn't ,love bales as do cows .once you go over 5/6 bales per acre though it dose get expensive

Matty6270

mahoney_j wrote: »

Agree with that but if going for bulk sp all the way ,like u don't know why lads go for bulk ,quality silage gives u options heavy stemmy crap didn't ,love bales as do cows .once you go over 5/6 bales per acre though it dose get expensive

It takes a lot of time in d winter drawing home bales. It has just got to exspenive. Our put will be put in for under €3000. Would be €5000 if we were doing bales+ all d hassle

stanflt

Matty6270 wrote: »

I think you may be wrong. When you count your time stacking bales,drawing them all winter,having to buy expensive plastic,and the silage not as good. Instead it's put in for you at 85 per acre and just cover it. You feed a lot quicker and a lot cleaner.

Silage is 10 times better in bales
We used to do 250 acres all pit with sp or wagon

Last year we put have to silage in pit and made half bales

Bales analysed better than pit

Fed bales all winter to milkers and when I ran out I had to go back to pit
Protein in the milk dropped .12 immediately costing me 30 cent per cow per day or 40 euro a day in lost income

stanflt

Matty6270 wrote: »

It takes a lot of time in d winter drawing home bales. It has just got to exspenive. Our put will be put in for under €3000. Would be €5000 if we were doing bales+ all d hassle

At 5000 you must be getting 13 bales per acre

35 acres at 20 acre for mowing

4300 for baling at 9.5 a bale including wrap equals 13 bales an acre

If your cutting crops with 13 bales an acre your not going to have any quality in it

Milked out

stanflt wrote: »

Silage is 10 times better in bales
We used to do 250 acres all pit with sp or wagon

Last year we put have to silage in pit and made half bales

Bales analysed better than pit

Fed bales all winter to milkers and when I ran out I had to go back to pit
Protein in the milk dropped .12 immediately costing me 30 cent per cow per day or 40 euro a day in lost income

Did you go half in half with the same cut of grass Stan? Would chop length have an thing to do with difference in performance?

stanflt

Milked out wrote: »

Did you go half in half with the same cut of grass Stan? Would chop length have an thing to do with difference in performance?

Yeah went with 50% of each field

Chop length has a lot to do with it plus also with the bales no need for straw so there is a double saving

Grueller

Bales are better quality no doubt but don't suit everybody.
Take my own example. I have an out farm 8 miles from the yard. I use this as my silage platform. My contractor does sp silage mowed, raked, picked up and in the pit for €100 per acre. 50 acres in it.
I take one cut off this only as it gets no slurry due to distance from the yard and any more would kill it imo so I graze the after grass. It is cut circa 20th May each year.
I then save up about 15-20 acres for bales at home when the after gtass relieves pressure and bale this. The bales always analyse better but with the cost of getting the work done and the having to draw them myself home they would not make sense off the out farm.
I am suckling, if I were dairy maybe it would, but not suckling.

Timmaay

Matty what enterprise are you in? Agreed fully about bales being better than pit silage for winter milkers, but if you're not in winter milk it's a lot less of a problem. 85e in fairness is cheap for pit silage. In terms of the 900gls tank, wayyy too small, one shower of rain with have it full, however there is a good economy of scale with tanks, we had to get a 6 or 7kgls precast tank for the silage pit effluent about 15 yrs ago, it cost about 5k at the time, a smaller tank the size of what your talking about will still be made 2grand, you'll still need a digger to dig it out, backfill it etc, so make it big enough from day one.

And fully agreed also about the heavy crop, utter waste of time, what part of the country are you in, you should be aiming to cut before the grass heads out, in the South East that is mid may, early June in slower places.

Count Mondego

stanflt wrote: »

At 5000 you must be getting 13 bales per acre

35 acres at 20 acre for mowing

4300 for baling at 9.5 a bale including wrap equals 13 bales an acre

If your cutting crops with 13 bales an acre your not going to have any quality in it

Try 11.50 on the west coast, can be 13 if you've only a few to do.

stanflt

Count Mondego wrote: »

Try 11.50 on the west coast, can be 13 if you've only a few to do.

13 is the amount of bales per acre

9.50 incl bale wrapping and wrap incl vat with a fusion

Count Mondego

stanflt wrote: »

13 is the amount of bales per acre

9.50 incl bale wrapping and wrap incl vat with a fusion

13 is euro that you pay per bale wrapped in south galway. We're not all farming 300 acres in the midlands

F.D

Stan is your farm all on one block? if so bales are not that much of a burden i am like the other posters that have land at least 5km away from my yard and its hard to beat the contractor, but i agree you should be going for quality anyway
2nd cut / surplus bales on the land away from home we stack in the field and draw home as required. but someone highlighted before you could be cut on you payments as the land is not in production if they are stacked there for a long time, so its something i will have to watch out for

i wonder is a few smaller silage pits an option ? they seem to have them in europe for there light cuts and get someone with a wagon to cut it, would the quality be as good as the bales then ?