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Mats Eriksson, a Swedish dairy farmer with a 60-cow herd producing 500,000kg milk a year, comments: "We produce around 800 bales a year in addition to our silage clamp and some 3,000 bales for other farmers. Given the choice, I prefer baled silage as it offers greater flexibility by enabling me to vary the quality of feed being given to the cattle. That helps me provide better balanced diets for my milking cows throughout the season, by selecting and mixing silage from different cuts and crops. "Baling also makes it easier to control quality and dry matter content and you can restrict production to when the weather is right, also it allows me to conserve late cuts. "I take three cuts and around 65% of the first goes into a clamp, although the wastage is higher and I am considering only using bales. The first cut bales have eight layers of wrap. This is reduced to six for the third cut because of the lower quality. If we have an excess, bales can be sold to generate income but when quality is very good, I can use ten layers and store the silage for the following season. Properly wrapped and handled it lasts for years." --------------- Research into the nutritional value of silage indicates that when properly made, with the right materials and machinery, and correctly stored, baled silage can show same or better quality, with fewer nutrient losses than either silage clamp or silo. A well-made bale can have the advantage that less air is trapped than in a silage clamp or silo and, following the introduction of bale choppers, the cattle have little trouble tearing out mouthfuls of the baled product, leading to increased fodder intake and milk yields. Read more about the nutritional value of bale silage |
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