Silage tedders, are they worth it?

invicta

Just wondering.
Your views, please discuss

E mac

Mowed out last Friday when grass was dry, that night and Saturday morning got the most of an inch of rain got a six rotor Tedder in Saturday evning within an hour the grass had dried noticeably. Raked into 20 foot rows Sunday morning picked soon after. No seepage from the pit yet so ya seems to be a place for tedding.

bogman_bass

At 10-12 euro an acre I let the contractor do it.

kevthegaff

bogman_bass wrote: »

At 10-12 euro an acre I let the contractor do it.

I've made around 400 bales and I got contractor to tedder for maybe 30 acres as most of it didnt need it. Suppose that's 300 euros without worrying about toking on off etc

hopeso

In most cases tedding the grass will reduce the number of bales per acre, so it’s a job that pays for itself. Contractor at €12 an acre is probably the handiest way out if you’re only giving it one run of the tedder, but it all depends on having a reliable contractor who can come when required available...

bogman_bass

kevthegaff wrote: »

I've made around 400 bales and I got contractor to tedder for maybe 30 acres as most of it didnt need it. Suppose that's 300 euros without worrying about toking on off etc

And no replacing tines.

If you have a hay bob I find that if it gets the initial run with a Tedder then the haybob will turn it without lumps after that if you ever decided to do so.

K.G.

Playing the devils advocate here.
Tedding 12 e
Raking 12 e
Thats 24 euro an acre so just to break even you need to reduc3 by 2.5 bales an acre and thats comparing to 10 ft conditioned swath wilted 24 hrs.add in higher risk of soil injestion .i cant justify it anyway

memorystick

Yer man who mows for me just takes off the 2 doors and leaves it wide. Puts in 20 then and it’s perfect. Why complicate it?

mengele

K.G. wrote: »

Playing the devils advocate here.
Tedding 12 e
Raking 12 e
Thats 24 euro an acre so just to break even you need to reduc3 by 2.5 bales an acre and thats comparing to 10 ft conditioned swath wilted 24 hrs.add in higher risk of soil injestion .i cant justify it anyway

Will contractors not insist on bringing in the rake to take up the 10fts? You would rarely see the contractors pick up 10fts these days:

Castlekeeper

Anyone any experience of a wuffler/swath turner?
I've a new red clover silage ley and I was wondering would they be gentler than a tedder for wilting?
(I know I'm being optimistic weatherwise!)

jntsnk

bogman_bass wrote: »

At 10-12 euro an acre I let the contractor do it.

7 euro here

jntsnk

K.G. wrote: »

Playing the devils advocate here.
Tedding 12 e
Raking 12 e
Thats 24 euro an acre so just to break even you need to reduc3 by 2.5 bales an acre and thats comparing to 10 ft conditioned swath wilted 24 hrs.add in higher risk of soil injestion .i cant justify it anyway

7 euro each for teddering and raking here
Cut is 20 but do it that myself. Massive competition around here don’t know how it pays them

bogman_bass

jntsnk wrote: »

7 euro here

Why would you bother owning your own gear with prices that low?
Can’t see how they make a turn but away with them!

Markcheese

Castlekeeper wrote: »

Anyone any experience of a wuffler/swath turner?
I've a new red clover silage ley and I was wondering would they be gentler than a tedder for wilting?
(I know I'm being optimistic weatherwise!)

Well you'll definitely have far less bales to the acre .. but that could well be because the clover is shattered to dust ..
I was always told handle clover as little as possible ... No conditioner , mow it flat , rake it / or turn it gently and bale it without knives .... contractor mightnt like it , and it may feel rough paying for extra bales / carting but it's better than making it into dust that you lose ...
May not always be easy to do if conditions are poor ...
Anything that's used for Lucerne or the like should suit clover

Gods Gift

Mower has spreader vanes in it and it does a great job spreading grass. If they expect us to go through it with a Tedder, they can go fcuk themselves.

TooOldBoots

I'm not a fan of the tether. I think it does too much damage to the crop. But everyone has their own best method.
Mine is to mow with a conditioner when the crop is dry as possible, I'm only mowing when there's at least another 24 hours of dry weather.
Leave the crop in the row for at most 24 hours, usually 18. It's at that point you've got the best balance of wilt and silage quality.
Over dry, tethered and battered to the steam silage will give you less bales, but you will also have less feed stuff too.

roosterman71

mengele wrote: »

Will contractors not insist on bringing in the rake to take up the 10fts? You would rarely see the contractors pick up 10fts these days:

If a contractor won't do the job as laid out in front of them, another contractor will.

Bass Reeves

Contractor cuts, rakes and bales for 20/ bale. I never ted, try to cut in dry weather leave it two days in really good weather and three in less good weather. Try to get him to rake early during the day they are baled really drys the grass

jd06

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Contractor cuts, rakes and bales for 20/ bale. I never ted, try to cut in dry weather leave it two days in really good weather and three in less good weather. Try to get him to take early during the day they are baled really drys the grass

Ya same here. Cut day 1 don't touch it the 2and and bale. the 3rd day. Cut with a conditioner.
Cant tell the difference afterwards

jntsnk

bogman_bass wrote: »

Why would you bother owning your own gear with prices that low?
Can’t see how they make a turn but away with them!

Beats me also. Raking is the same.

Reggie.

K.G. wrote: »

Playing the devils advocate here.
Tedding 12 e
Raking 12 e
Thats 24 euro an acre so just to break even you need to reduc3 by 2.5 bales an acre and thats comparing to 10 ft conditioned swath wilted 24 hrs.add in higher risk of soil injestion .i cant justify it anyway

Jaysus that's good money for that work. Wouldnt get it around here

K.G.

Reggie. wrote: »

Jaysus that's good money for that work. Wouldnt get it around here

I suppose you have to take something on board here.this is deep west cork and to give you a guide.cut 75 acre first cut in 20 fields,take top 2 out you have 50 acres in 18 fields.thats an average field size of 2.5 acres.at one stage i cut 16 acres in 13 fields.i claim there should be different prices for field sizes with a 2 acre field twice the price of a 10 +acre field.add small yards and lanes and hills silage is a very time consuming business in west cork

Reggie.

K.G. wrote: »

I suppose you have to take something on board here.this is deep west cork and to give you a guide.cut 75 acre first cut in 20 fields,take top 2 out you have 50 acres in 18 fields.thats an average field size of 2.5 acres.at one stage i cut 16 acres in 13 fields.i claim there should be different prices for field sizes with a 2 acre field twice the price of a 10 +acre field.add small yards and lanes and hills silage is a very time consuming business in west cork

Set price here. Most fields around 5 acres and a good distance apart

Millionaire only not

K.G. wrote: »

I suppose you have to take something on board here.this is deep west cork and to give you a guide.cut 75 acre first cut in 20 fields,take top 2 out you have 50 acres in 18 fields.thats an average field size of 2.5 acres.at one stage i cut 16 acres in 13 fields.i claim there should be different prices for field sizes with a 2 acre field twice the price of a 10 +acre field.add small yards and lanes and hills silage is a very time consuming business in west cork

Sounds like u need a digger to knock ditches not a Tedder -lol

st1979

Having owned my own baler I never saw big differences in bale counts by wilting. Now I would not try to bale wet stuff which would make a difference. But mow today bale tomorrow. Even very leafy stuff would be nearly 30 dm as I would get a rake in to put it in 20 foots.
When I used a contractor I always tried to get dryer stuff thinking I saved on bale numbers. Contractor used to tell me it was too dry for milking cows and he was right. Damper bales were more palatable. Might sag a bit when stacked.
The biggest difference in wet silage and dry was the weight of the bale. Same density setting on my own baler and weight went from 700 to 1000kg a bale. Most crops I would of cut at leafy stage and get 7 bales an acre on average

I would use a tedder when grass was very wet to try to get it up to 25+ dm but can't see the point trying to get it any drier than 35dm. And another mistake I was making was leaving it on the ground for more than a day. Definitely loosing energy trying to dry it more to save on bale numbers.

alps

Buying work..

minerleague

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Contractor cuts, rakes and bales for 20/ bale. I never ted, try to cut in dry weather leave it two days in really good weather and three in less good weather. Try to get him to rake early during the day they are baled really drys the grass

was helping neighbour at silage, baling from 10ft rows down 2 days, the grass on top was dried almost to hay while the bottom ( and the ground under) was wet. Overall im sure dm was same as tedded silage but i just think tedding gives more even consistent grass. Also aswell as reducing cost of baling,wrapping,plastic u reduce the cost and time drawing bales by reducing the number of bales. Lastly for the same lenght of time between cutting and baling ( important imo to keep this as short as possible) tedded silage is lighter for handier tractors.

Bass Reeves

minerleague wrote: »

was helping neighbour at silage, baling from 10ft rows down 2 days, the grass on top was dried almost to hay while the bottom ( and the ground under) was wet. Overall im sure dm was same as tedded silage but i just think tedding gives more even consistent grass. Also aswell as reducing cost of baling,wrapping,plastic u reduce the cost and time drawing bales by reducing the number of bales. Lastly for the same lenght of time between cutting and baling ( important imo to keep this as short as possible) tedded silage is lighter for handier tractors.

My contractor rakes into twenty foot rows in as he cuts with a 10' mower all grass will be rowed into an are between the two rows. Yes there will be a little green on the bottom but in general it is only a little. Over the years I have got it tested and in general it varies depending on the weather from 30-50% DM. While tedding gives more consistant grass on really hot weather if tedded you would be hitting 60+%DM which.

However tedding has a cost and I did it once at 16/acre, I think it is still around that. That is around 1.25 five bales/acre at my baling plastic costs As it is my contractor has one of the new krone balers, I averaged 7/acre this year for first cut had too see it reduced to sub 6/acre to break even and to 5 to make it worth my while doing and I am paying by the bale for cutting. As well tedding carries the risk in broken weather of making it harder to reduce DM and if you get the forecast wrong its a mess

GrasstoMilk

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Contractor cuts, rakes and bales for 20/ bale. I never ted, try to cut in dry weather leave it two days in really good weather and three in less good weather. Try to get him to rake early during the day they are baled really drys the grass

20e a bale? Thats saucy!

Bass Reeves

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

20e a bale? Thats saucy!

sorry 10/bale you miss understanf its costing 16/bale to ted for me to rake/wrap/bale/cut(10 euro) and plastic(3 euro) its around 13/bale so 16 is about the cost of1.25 (excatly 1.23) bales/acre that I need to save if tedding to break even

I wouldn't like to be relying on or paying a contractor to come and turn silage even if they would do it which around my area they don't. In general though I would not be a fan at all of relying on contractors to do anything outside of the things that don't make any sense in having kit for (thats just baling for us). In any case in my area you won't get contractors doing anything really outside of cut, rake and bale (and I mean in general, its very rare to see a contractor doing slurry even as everyone does their own).


We turn twice at least with the haybob and would leave 2 days on the ground normally. We like to make it dry though as we have found thats what our sucklers like (they would be slow to eat proper silage), and also when they are on straw they are twice as messy from wet sh1te if eating wetter silage compared to what we make.

minerleague

Bass Reeves wrote: »

My contractor rakes into twenty foot rows in as he cuts with a 10' mower all grass will be rowed into an are between the two rows. Yes there will be a little green on the bottom but in general it is only a little. Over the years I have got it tested and in general it varies depending on the weather from 30-50% DM. While tedding gives more consistant grass on really hot weather if tedded you would be hitting 60+%DM which.

However tedding has a cost and I did it once at 16/acre, I think it is still around that. That is around 1.25 five bales/acre at my baling plastic costs As it is my contractor has one of the new krone balers, I averaged 7/acre this year for first cut had too see it reduced to sub 6/acre to break even and to 5 to make it worth my while doing and I am paying by the bale for cutting. As well tedding carries the risk in broken weather of making it harder to reduce DM and if you get the forecast wrong its a mess

all fair points, should have said i cut (plain disc mower) and ted ( haybob) myself and would be baling light crops throughtout summer rather than traditional heavy all together 1 cut. Contractor has fusion baler now and that as u said has reduced no of bales in itself. I rarely have silage down more than 18 hrs( even less in real hot weather)

SuperTortoise

They have their place, with the wet summers we seem to be getting every year and a 2nd cut silage which i find to be much softer grass then tedding out makes it more palatable.

I could'nt justify the cost of one for the ammount of silage i make but i did get mine shook out last year and this year and there is a noticable difference, what would have been wet slightly soggy silage is now much drier, i find there is much less waste when feeding drier silage as well, with wet silage you'd often see it go black if left in front of the feed barrier for a second day and my cows won't clean up.

Bass Reeves

SuperTortoise wrote: »

They have their place, with the wet summers we seem to be getting every year and a 2nd cut silage which i find to be much softer grass then tedding out makes it more palatable.

I could'nt justify the cost of one for the ammount of silage i make but i did get mine shook out last year and this year and there is a noticable difference, what would have been wet slightly soggy silage is now much drier, i find there is much less waste when feeding drier silage as well, with wet silage you'd often see it go black if left in front of the feed barrier for a second day and my cows won't clean up.

I think feeding wet silage is an art itself. it is vital to keep the feedface clean. I see lads piling silage on top of silage not eaten, which stock will not eat then. As well lads filling the barrier's of bales and then ending up with alot of waste. I agree way less waste with dryer silage

Mooooo

Don't have the space to leave 2 days feed in front of cow's here, do many do that? With bales it's mown with a conditioner mower and then raked in before the baler. Bales seem fine. Tedding can increase the risk of soil contamination as well. Perhaps if mowing and baling in a very short window they may help