Getting Silage Tested-Timescale involved?

Bleating Lamb

Have never got Silage tested for feed value,
Aurivo are offering it for free at the moment.
From when you give in the grass sample,how long typically does it take for results on dmd etc to come back?

Thanks for any replies and a Happy and Safe farming 2020 to everyone.

Mushy06

i got mine done on Thursday morning and had results that evening. Depends how far sample has to travel to lab

whelan2

Mushy06 wrote: »

i got mine done on Thursday morning and had results that evening. Depends how far sample has to travel to lab

Waiting 3 weeks for results here. Wont be using that company again

Bleating Lamb

whelan2 wrote: »

Waiting 3 weeks for results here. Wont be using that company again

Thanks,got a text from Aurivo.....should be back within the week.
Round bales I have to test.Just wondering how many individual strands of grass do you need for an accurate test result?

Will I take a fistful from a few different bales or just from one bale?
Have not opened any bales at all yet.Does it matter where in bale you take handful from?

Thanks for any replies,never got Silage tested before.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Thanks,got a text from Aurivo.....should be back within the week.
Round bales I have to test.Just wondering how many individual strands of grass do you need for an accurate test result?

Will I take a fistful from a few different bales or just from one bale?
Have not opened any bales at all yet.Does it matter where in bale you take handful from?

Thanks for any replies,never got Silage tested before.

The more bales you sample from, the more accurate the result will be.

A neighbour samples a bale from every field cut from every cut, that's 7 or 8 bales sampled out of about 200 bales. Into two bags, one for first cut, one for second cut and uses that to decide what ration to give to his weanlings and if his cows need a bit as well.

Bleating Lamb

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

The more bales you sample from, the more accurate the result will be.

A neighbour samples a bale from every field cut from every cut, that's 7 or 8 bales sampled out of about 200 bales. Into two bags, one for first cut, one for second cut and uses that to decide what ration to give to his weanlings and if his cows need a bit as well.

Thanks for the feedback,have yet to get ‘bag’ to put samples in from Aurivo store.
Would imagine you are not talking about a very sizeable bag are you?

So would you just take a fistful from centre of top of 5 or 6 bales iiykwim?......Bales stacked on their end so sitting upright.Silage made from 6 fields.

Would be easier then to just patch up the hole cut in plastic on top of the bale,only stacked singly.
Won’t be putting in sheep to use it for another few weeks.
Again thanks for feedback from anyone who gets their silage tested.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback,have yet to get ‘bag’ to put samples in from Aurivo store.
Would imagine you are not talking about a very sizeable bag are you?

So would you just take a fistful from centre of top of 5 or 6 bales iiykwim?......Bales stacked on their end so sitting upright.Silage made from 6 fields.

Would be easier then to just patch up the hole cut in plastic on top of the bale,only stacked singly.
Won’t be putting in sheep to use it for another few weeks.
Again thanks for feedback from anyone who gets their silage tested.

If you were to pick a few to feed from different cuts and take the sample from the middle of each of those?

I take a plastic shopping bag and take a fist full from a few and fill the bag. Loads in that amount as long as you get a good wide selection of bales.

Dunedin

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Have never got Silage tested for feed value,
Aurivo are offering it for free at the moment.
From when you give in the grass sample,how long typically does it take for results on dmd etc to come back?

Thanks for any replies and a Happy and Safe farming 2020 to everyone.

As a little trick last year, I took 2 samples from the same bale. One sample said 67 dmd and the other 73 dmd. Don’t have a lot of faith since in the process.