Silage preparation: professional secrets of the modern farmer
About 50% of the winter ration of livestock should be succulent green fodder. Therefore, the timely preparation of silage is a procedure of paramount importance for any farmer. At the same time, he needs to know which crops are best for ensiling and when they need to be harvested.
Moreover, in the process of fermentation of green mass, 4 factors play an important role:
- temperature regime;
- humidity;
- storage type;
- compaction of raw materials.
Knowing these nuances and applying them in practice, you can get nutritious, healthy food for your pets.
Canned greens increase milk yield in cows and goats. In addition, fresh plant materials improve digestion in animals, and also enhance their immunity.
Silage preparation: an overview of the crops used and recommendations for the use of feed
Nutritious greens are obtained by preserving or fermenting forage plants. Freshly cut or dried tops, stems and leaves are preserved in pits, trenches, polymer sleeves, towers and other structures. The feed preparation technology largely depends on what the silage is made of.
As raw materials for obtaining a high-quality product, choose:
- corn;
- forage cabbage;
- sunflower;
- winter rye;
- rape;
- sorghum.
The main condition for choosing silage crops is the presence of a sufficient amount of sugars in them. After all, it is these compounds that are responsible for lactic acid fermentation in green mass.
Most of all, corn is suitable for storing food. Although legumes are successfully combined with it, as well as tops of carrots, watermelons and beets. Nevertheless, it is recommended to use it yourself. At the same time, oil radish and white mustard. The collection of these plants for silage harvesting is carried out 40-45 days after the appearance of the first shoots, but before the beginning of budding. But sunflower is harmoniously combined with vetch, oats, peas, lupines, barley and beans.
Moreover, there is another group of silage crops that contain a small percentage of sugars. For this reason, they are harvested in the form of combined mixtures.
Add to sunflower, rapeseed, corn and winter rye:
- clover;
- alfalfa;
- soy;
- vetch (or other perennial herb);
- sedge;
- lupine;
- sweet clover.
If there are very few easy-silo plants, then all kinds of starter cultures or preservatives are introduced into the substrate. The resulting juicy mass is used to feed cows, chinchillas, nutria, pigs, goats, sheep and rabbits. To get a high quality product, it is important to learn how to make silage at home.
Protein-rich food waste (pulp, pulp or stillage) is also taken as the basis for the preparation of nutritious feed. At the same time, it can be perennial grasses, legumes and cereals, or tops of other garden plants.
Mowing season for silage crops
For each type of plant, the harvesting time is purely individual, since the phases of development and maturation are different for them. The culture must be mown at a time when it is maximally rich in chemical compounds necessary for fruitful fermentation. Taking into account these features, agronomists distinguish several categories of silage harvesting:
- Corn. During the transition of grain from milky to waxy ripeness.
- Winter rye. The initial stage of earing.
- Clover. When buds are blooming.
- Sunflower.At the beginning of flowering and before blooming of flower rosettes, but not more than 30%.
- Soy. After browning the fruit.
In this list, a pattern can be traced: cereal grasses are harvested during the earing period, and legumes and other cereals - at the initial stage of the wax ripeness of the grains. Now is the time to consider in detail how to make a silage with superior quality characteristics.
To determine the moisture content of the plants, the greens are rolled. If juice appears on the folds, then the indicator is normal. Insufficiently wet foliage will have a sluggish appearance, and too juicy will begin to release liquid already during cutting.
Silage preparation technology: 3 important points
The essence of the fermentation process of green mass is reduced to compliance with only 3 conditions:
- sufficient sugar content in crops;
- achievement of optimal humidity (up to 70%);
- providing anaerobic storage.
In a very moist environment (more than 80%), a lot of acetic acid is released, which reduces the quality of the product and it sours.
Standard silage harvesting technology consists of 3 stages:
- Mowing greenery. After that, sometimes additional drying is carried out to increase the moisture content of the raw material to 60-75%.
- Grinding and stacking. The stems / leaves should be 3-4 cm long. A lot of sap is often released at this stage. If there is too much of it, then the mass is mixed with chaff or straw in a ratio of 1: 5. But dried raw materials are diluted with water, pumpkin or zucchini.
- Storage ramming and sealing. Special silo pits are built, which are concreted or covered with bricks. The bottom is covered with foliage or straw. The raw materials are laid in layers 25 cm thick and tamped tightly, adding green mass every day.
The less liquid the plant contains, the finer it needs to be crushed (length 2-3 cm). Coarse cuts (8-10 cm) are made at a culture moisture content of 80%.
Silage is often stacked by separating it with straw. In this case, each of the layers is thoroughly mixed and compacted. The thickness of the grass layer is 30-40 cm, and that of the straw cut is 40-50 cm. After laying the last portion of the raw material, the storage is tightly covered with plastic wrap. From above, soil or peat is poured onto it - up to 30 cm thick. In addition, a canopy is constructed over the trench to protect the workpiece from rain / snow. Also, a ditch is dug around its perimeter for water drainage.
As a result, such a fermentation process will last:
- for legumes - about 2-3 months;
- 20 days for easy-to-feed plants;
- for all other crops - within 1-1.5 months.
The fermentation temperature of lactic acid bacteria is 38-50˚С. If the temperature regime is higher, then the substance loses carotene, as well as protein mass. Therefore, it is recommended to harvest the material within 3-4 days, but not more.
Features of feeding livestock with silage
Subject to all the rules for harvesting and storing silage, the appearance of the green mass practically does not change. A properly prepared mixture has a pleasant aroma with a subtle sourness. When removing feed from the storage, the hole is made as small as possible. Then it is tightly closed again. It is worth remembering that a portion of juicy greens taken is suitable only for a single dose. In the fresh air, nutrients evaporate quickly. But it is they that have a positive effect on the process of digestion and milk production in livestock.
In addition, it is important to comply with the daily feeding rates for pets:
- Cash cows. For 100 kg of live weight there are up to 8-9 kg of feed.
- Young growth. Canned greens are recommended for 2-month-olds, but not in large portions. By one year, the dose is increased to 10 kg in 24 hours.
- Horses. For these animals, the highest quality silage is chosen with the calculation of 6-8 kg per day per head.
- Pigs. They are fed about 4 kg of green mass per day.
- Sheeps. These animals need only 3-4 kg of valuable nutritious greens.
When all supplies are taken from the storage, the structure must be cleaned of plant residues. Then the walls of the underground structure are treated with a solution of lime (freshly slaked).
As this overview shows, silage harvesting requires special knowledge. As raw materials, they take crops with a high sugar content: corn, rapeseed, sunflower, sorghum and winter rye. They are mown at the stage of milky-wax ripeness of grains, during flowering or earing. The moisture content of plants should be 65-70%. The crushed stems and leaves are placed in a trench, the mass is tamped down, and then sealed. As a result, the greens will retain their beneficial properties and will appeal to all pets.