Wet second cut silage

cacs

Had to bale wet second cut silage yesterday. It was very good quality. I am Wondering will the quality be effected any comments

_Brian

2009 we baled wet silage.
I was distraught to watch the water runnin off the table as it was wrapped.

It was a bit worse quality that other years but not near as bad as I expected.

We knifed the but of bales the day before feeding to drain them.

Then I remembered back to 1985 and all the hay that was lost as baling silage didn't exist. Field after field pushed into the backs of ditches lost with the weather.

You'll loose a bit, but what's done is done.

Cavanjack

cathal irwin wrote: »

I had to bale wet second cut silage yesterday . Worried about the quality of it . Does anyone have any comments

We fed bales of water in spring 2013. No animal died. No animal put on weight either. Can't get it right every year with the weather. Especially when relying on contractors.

Timmaay

Cavanjack wrote: »

We fed bales of water in spring 2013. No animal died. No animal put on weight either. Can't get it right every year with the weather. Especially when relying on contractors.

19% dm 1st cut silage was what the milkers got here that winter :eek::rolleyes::o:( . Water running off the sheargrab with each grab. Needless to say they milked sh$te all winter, and I doubt the water trough got touched all winter ha, but again nothing died ha.

selectamatic

Have seen men drain bales with mixed results. cut a 3 inch slit in one round end and have that end sitting on the ground. Wet bales are generally always better off stood on their end like coke cans.

kay 9

Can't be any worse than the muck we baled this year. If carslberg made bales (these ain't it) 2 weeks down, rained for most. Waiting on contractors is a balls to be mild. Then again it'll be better than them eating snow in January I guess

Jb1989

Wouldn't worry me,
Especially the winter of the big freeze I was glad to have wet bales, as the drinkers were frozen,
Yes the bales had ice on them but that was a better help than real dry silage that would've put a drought on the cows,
A little bit of everything...

I said

Ya would want to have seen the water flowing out of the2012 bales fed them out stock didn't die but they didn't thrive either.

fastrac

As long as you dont have to eat them yourself there is no point in stressing about them.

Figerty

I have the same problem, but not as bad.
Once piece of advice that was given to me was to get straw. The dry stray helps the digestion of the wet silage. A few square bales here and there helps the cattle keep the system working.

cacs

Thanks that's great advice

The Cuban

Depends on how well the bales got packed, also if you put out a lot of Nitrogen to get the second cut then the silage could turn black. Definitely will not have as much feeding as a dry bale but the cattle can often prefer wet silage.
I`d say we've all had to do it at some stage, I've had mixed results from good silage to piss poor. Best solution is to use them bales first this winter and don't expect to feed the same amount of cattle per bale

cacs

Thanks for that . Yea it's hard to know what the quality will be like. Put 3 bags to the acre of pasture sward. It was cut 50 days after the nitrogen went on it. So it's honestly hard to know how it will turn out. I am going to feed it to on calf dry cows so it will keep the condition off them providing it's not gone rotten