# Making Haylage



## JD2020 (Apr 14, 2010)

Can you guys give me a quick lesson in haylage? I have some questions that I would like answered specifically; among those are,How do you store it? and What are the advantages of it over hay?
You see I will be making it for my own use on a beef herd and was wondering if I stand to gain anything by feeding it instead of hay.

Thanks

JD2020


----------



## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

OK, I'll start.

First, haylage is almost always pure alfalfa for the reasons below.

_>How do you store it?_
Pretty much any way that keeps the air away from it. When I was a kid growing up on the dairy farm, we had a stack, then cement silos then we went to Harvestores. These days, the cows are gone and we are a forage producer delivering to a wide variety of farms. Sealed silos like HArvetore are the exception.

Most large dairies are back to using a stack like we did in the 70's. Some also wrap their haylage in plastic wrap and it looks like a long white sausage. This is then sealed up tight and they pump in some ammonia (or something like that) which makes the protein skyrocket. Still another method is to wrap individual bales in plastic wrap.
_
>What are the advantages of it over hay?_
Haylage usually has more protein because it is baled at a much higher moisture content. This allows you reduce the risk of rain damage while you're waiting for it to cure. Also, and possibly more important, the higher moisture results in less leaf loss, which, again results in more protein.

_>You see I will be making it for my own use on a beef herd...was wondering if I stand to gain anything by feeding it instead of hay._
I don't know a heckuvalot about beef, but most beef guys I know feed crap hay for some reason. I would think that more protein would result in more beef but maybe it only results in more fat?


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Rank hit all the major points. I run beef cows as well and they are here for three reasons. I hate store bought meat, I have 18 acres of pastures that have springs and seeps that move yearly so row cropping it is a exercise in futility, they make good garbage disposals for hay I don't want to be seen hauling to the auctions.

Rank is also correct as well that better hay will result in faster growth. But we run all our grain thru a rotary grain cleaner before it's blown into the bins to cool so we usually end up with 500-600 bushels of screenings to feed over the winter, once the screenings are gone, most of the time I've found it cheaper to run corn thru the roller mill and supplement the poor hay with cracked corn rather than feed good hay to the cows.

If it gets really cold spell that's expected to last a week or better, I'll feed some better hay. Last winter I fed silage bales and plan on making more this year. Faster to get it made since it doesn't need to be anywhere near as dry and they cleaned up every single bit of it.

Was so happy with the silage bales, I traded my round baler off on a newer Silage Special model.

One thing I have noticed though in my area, a person really needs to make em for their own use, as around here, they go dirt cheap at the auctions. One winter I was hauling dry hay that I'd been feeding the cows and bringing home silage bales.


----------



## enos (Dec 6, 2009)

I use the round bale silage as insurance. If the weather goes south, round bale(hard core baler) good and tight at almost any moisture and wrap/tube them. The way I look at it, $8.00 per square bale to $2.00 if it gets washed, the round bale silage gets me about $50.00 to $60.00, convert to square bale volume, it works out to about $4.50 a bale. It is a happy middle of the road instead of filling barn with crap. Now if there were any money in cows it would be real nice. You can make more picking oats outa horse $hit than beef farming.
Enos


----------



## mtoms (Jun 3, 2010)

Hayledge can be made out of any type of grass legume. If must be harvested at the proper mosture content to ferment and keep properly. The advantages of haylage over hay are easy to harvest, normaly better quality , easier to store and feed. We put up about 3000 tons of hayledge a year.


----------



## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Some points to consider concerning making and using haylege, based on our work with alfalfa several years ago:
-Moisture content of the round bales should be between 45% and 60%. If lower than 45%, the haylege developed some mold when stored through the summer. If moisture in the haylege was over 60%, the haylege rotted. So, unless you are very experienced at determining hay moisture content, you may want to consider using some sort of a moisture tester, or sub-sampling the windrows, chopping the vegetation into small (one-half inch lengths of stems) and using a microwave to do a rapid determination of the moisture content. There are procedures written for how to do this and not cause a fire in the microwave by over drying the forage. An accurate, small capacity scale that weighs in grams, or for larger samples weighs in ounces is needed. Paper plates and scissors also are needed.
-Individual plastic-wrapped bales are best wrapped and stored at the site where they will be fed. Moving these wrapped bales risks puncturing or tearing the plastic. Holes in the plastic must be sealed to prevent air from ruining the anaerobic condition that creates silage- in this case haylege.


----------

