Silage, haylage and silage and their characteristics

Silage, haylage and silage are succulent feeds that are prepared from green mass (grass), stored under anaerobic conditions (in trenches, towers, mounds) and serve as a replacement for green feed in the winter. These are the main feeds in dairy farming now and they can reach up to 80% of bulk feeds in the diet.

Silage is a succulent feed prepared from green mass and stored under anaerobic conditions due to the formation of organic acids as a result of lactic fermentation. The moisture content of the silage according to GOST 55986-2014 is more than 70%. Low pH of silage 3.8-4.2 is the main preservative factor

Haylage is a succulent feed prepared from green mass and stored under anaerobic conditions due to the physiological dryness of the raw material (silage humidity is (40) 50-60%. The formation of carbon dioxide as a result of plant respiration is an additional preservative factor.

The term silage is relatively new to our feed production. The fact is that silage is dried silage or haylage with high humidity. According to GOST 55986-2014, silage is silage with a moisture content of 60-70%.

Scientific basis of canning succulent feed

The main points important for understanding are presented in the form of a presentation. It can be enlarged to fill the entire screen.

Silage and haylage are stored anaerobically in trenches or towers. Technological methods for preparing these feeds are virtually the same:

mowing green mass (grass);
drying (depending on the type of feed, the final moisture content will vary);
selection and transportation to the storage location;
tamping;
hermetic shelter of a filled storage facility.

Thus, the final product will depend on the raw material - whether it can be ensiled or not and the moisture content of the mass being laid.

Operating principle of a rotary sensor

When loading cement, the following occurs:

Turning on the electric motor - the shaft with the blade begins to rotate at low speed. Torque from the shaft is transmitted to the sensor shaft.
Filling the container to the sensor level - the blade enters the cement mass. Since the engine power is low, the “flag” gets stuck in the cement and stops rotating.
Closing the switch in the sensor control system with a signal sent to the control panel and an audible warning. In this case, the engine automatically turns off.

When unloading, the process occurs in reverse order:

Read also: Who is a speech therapist and why is one needed?

The blade is released from the cement.
The spring is activated, opening the switches.
Power is supplied to the motor, and a signal is sent to the control panel that the level of the contents of the container has decreased.

Even completely dry cement tends to quickly stick to the walls of the container and cake. This has a bad effect on the properties of the material and interferes with unloading - after 1–2 days the binder “refuses” to move to the outlet when the shutter is opened. The problem is solved by including vibration shaking systems (vibrating pan or industrial vibrators) or aeration into the package.

Vibrators contribute to the gradual destruction of the silo; the vibrating pan and aeration systems do not have this drawback. Due to the low price, preference is usually given to an aeration system.

Silage

1 kg of silage contains on average 0.25 kg of dry matter, 2.3 MJ of metabolizable energy, 30 g of crude protein, 75 g of crude fiber. Silage contains 9-13g crude fat and since the amount of this feed in the diet is quite large, it can be assessed as a source of crude fat

For example, with 20 kg of silage, 260 g of crude fat enters the diet, which is equivalent to the intake of crude fat with 3.3 kg of sunflower cake. (Based on the average nutritional value according to A.P. Kalashnikov)

Forage crops intended for silage should be harvested during the following phases of the growing season:

— corn — waxy and milky-waxy ripeness of the grain; it is allowed to harvest corn at earlier stages in repeated crops and in areas where this crop is not suitable due to climatic conditions
can reach these phases;
sunflower - beginning of flowering;
lupine - in the shiny bean phase;
winter rye - at the beginning of heading;
soybean - in the browning phase of the lower beans;
perennial leguminous grasses - in the budding phase, the beginning of flowering;
perennial cereal grasses - at the end of the boll phase - the beginning of heading (tasseling);
grass mixtures of perennial legumes and cereal grasses are mowed in the above-mentioned phases of the growing season of the predominant component;
annual legume-cereal grass mixtures are mowed in the phase of waxy ripeness of legume seeds in the lower two or three tiers of plants.

To prepare silage, seeded perennial leguminous grasses are used, mowed in the budding phase, but not later than the beginning of flowering; cereals - at the end of the booting phase before heading.

Ensiling is based on the sugar minimum theory. . All plants were divided into three groups:

easy to silage - there is more than enough sugar for lactic fermentation; such plants include corn and sunflower.
difficult to ensile - ensiling is possible only with full use of the sugar contained in the plant
non-silageable - there is not enough sugar for the ensiling process.

If we ignore the high science, the division into these groups also takes into account both the moisture content and the protein content in the feed. Conventionally, we can say that plants that are difficult to silage are suitable for haylage.

In addition, the use of silage additives is based on this theory. For example, easy-to-silage plants do not require added sugars, but bacterial starters, for example, will speed up the production of good silage. In non-ensiling plants, the introduction of bacterial starters is not effective, but for example, the introduction of molasses (a source of sugar for fermentation) and starter for difficult-to-ensile plants will allow you to obtain a good quality product.

The basis of silage is the fermentation process. There are three stages in total:

General fermentation. This stage begins from the moment the silo is covered and continues until anaerobic conditions are created. During this period, all existing microflora multiply, consuming nutrients and oxygen. The main task when making silage is to reduce this phase as much as possible. Firstly, fermentation consumes nutrients, and secondly, when proteins are broken down during fermentation, butyric acid accumulates. Active fermentation processes lead to an increase in the temperature of the silage mass, which is unacceptable.
Lactic acid fermentation occurs after creating anaerobic conditions and continues until the pH decreases to 3.8-4.2. At this pH, lactic acid bacteria begin to die and fermentation stops.
begins , conservation, in which the existing microflora gradually dies. Typically, the silage preservation process takes about 30 days.

Silo trench size

It all starts with thinking about the required size of the silage trench, especially the size of the cutting area, so that later opening the silage does not lead to unwanted heating due to the feed being removed too shallowly. Because this factor cannot be changed not just for several weeks, but also for 200 or more days.

Heated haylage not only means significantly greater losses , but also reduces such sensitive feed intake and can, in addition - and especially in highly productive cows in early lactation - be harmful to health (for example, a high risk of mastitis).

An absolutely necessary condition is to distribute fresh, tasty and, of course, cold food to the animals every day. But this means that the cutting area of all silage trenches, taking into account the compaction of the silage mass, should be such that the depth of the removed layer of feed is at least 1.5-2 m per week.

Based on the need for haylage of about 20 cubic meters/head:
in a diet with 7 kg DM grass haylage and 7 kg DM corn silage
with a haylage density of 240 kg DM per cubic meter and silage -270 kg DM per cubic meter
with a population of, for example, 80 cows.
In this example, assuming that only these two silage trenches were fed under the conditions described above, each would have a maximum cutting area of 12 m2. But in many enterprises, the cut area of the silo trench is much larger than that required to ensure an excavation depth of at least 1.5 m per week (in the cold season) and at least 2 m per week (in the warm season). In combination with the very often insufficient compaction of the feed mass, this greatly increases the risk of overheating.

Therefore, long before preparing haylage, the farmer needs to think about what the livestock will be like over the next 12 months. Based on this and taking into account the planned composition of diets (ratio of main feed to concentrates, ratio of grass haylage to silage), you need to approximately calculate how many tons or cubic meters of grass and corn silage will be needed. Based on the mandatory minimum depth of silage excavation of 1.5, or better yet 2 m per week, the maximum possible cutting area is calculated. And since, as a rule, the width of the silo trench cannot be changed, the only variable that can be influenced is the height of the silo trench.

So even if at first glance this sounds harsh: it is not the height of the walls of the silo trench that determines the height of its filling, but the only thing is to provide the animals with cold food throughout the entire feeding period (and not hot due to spontaneous heating).

It is also important to roughly estimate the volume of mowed grass mass in order to have enough free space in the trench in a timely manner and avoid a situation where more was mowed than expected, but there is no more space in the trench, and you have to exceed the planned laying height.

Haylage

Unlike silage, some authors refer to haylage as roughage. For its preparation, cereals, legumes or mixtures thereof are used. A special place is occupied by grain haylage - haylage from cereal crops, which are cut at milky ripeness without threshing. Haylage contains a fairly high amount of fiber. As a result of preservation, more nutrients are retained than in silage. Haylage can successfully replace all bulky feeds in the diet. The structure of such diets usually has a haylage:concentrates ratio of 70:30

1 kg of haylage contains on average 0.45 kg of dry matter, 3.8 MJ of metabolic energy, 40-60 g of crude protein and 130-150 g of crude fiber.

The main preservative factor in the preparation of haylage is the physiological dryness of the raw material. At a humidity of 50%, microflora cannot develop on plants and fermentation processes stop. Additional preservative factors are plant respiration and lactic acid fermentation, so the pH of haylage has a slightly acidic reaction of 5.4-5.6.

What defines hay?

Fresh grass when cut usually has a moisture content of at least 80%, which equates to a dry matter of 20% or less. Cut forage intended for hay must be field dried to a moisture level of no more than 12 percent. A baler that produces rounds or bales with a moisture level greater than 12 percent will cause them to become heavier and risk mold and heat infestation. Heating can occur because the presence of sufficient water in the feed allows metabolic activity to continue, causing heat to build up in the bale or bale. The heat can become so high that the hay spontaneously combusts and fires occur in the storage area.

Typically, bales and rolls of hay are wrapped with hay twine or netting.

Silage and haylage storage

Above ground or buried trenches are used to store silage. The trenches are made of slabs and concrete blocks, and the outer walls are covered with earth. Before laying feed, the trench is cleaned of feed residues, cracks and crevices are repaired, and disinfected.

Some farms use silage pits (the method is considered outdated) or mounds. Covering mounds and m is carried out similarly to silo trenches

The storage facility is laid out within a short period of 2-3 days. Sometimes, when these deadlines cannot be met, harvesting can be carried out within a week, but in this case it is necessary to cover the green mass during the period when the harvesting and compaction process is stopped. The shelter will stop anaerobic fermentation and reduce the temperature of the harvested feed.

If the laying of feed is completed, then a polymer film is laid on top of the silage mass, which is secured with molasses, the film is sprinkled with earth or pressed down with old tires. Low-value grass and straw, but without seeds, are placed on the top layer to prevent birds from pecking at the film.

Harvesting technique

The technology for making silage is called ensiling. To make silos, special pits, trenches, and towers are used. Holes and trenches are always dug in clay soil and lined with cement to prevent moisture from passing through the ground.

The preparation takes place in several stages:

The green mass is collected from the field and brought to the harvesting site.
Cereals, meadows, and legumes are crushed to 3 cm, and corn and sunflower to 5 cm.
The resulting crushed mass is compacted into silo pits, trenches or towers. This entire process should take a minimum of time.

Optimal cover of the silage pile

A layer of moistened clay 15-20 cm thick is poured on top of the green mass.
If silage is prepared in the cool season, for example, in the fall, so that it does not start to freeze in the pit, straw and earth are also laid on top of the clay.
Over the pits or trenches with the harvested silage, awnings, tents, and roofs are installed so that snow and rain cannot get inside.
From corn, young grass, sunflower, grain grasses, silage is ready in 2-3 weeks. Legume silage takes longer to prepare and can only be used after 2-3 months. Only after this can you start testing it and selling it or using it to feed animals.

Important! Only fresh, high-quality silage can be used. Moldy product should not be given to animals, because it can cause severe stomach illnesses, especially for horses!

Silage from a scientific point of view

This feed is packed tightly into silos, without air access. Various biochemical processes occur in it, which contribute to the accumulation of organic acids, mainly lactic acids, which have a preservative effect, which protects the phytomass from spoilage and decomposition. An excess of lactic acid is just as harmful as its deficiency, so it is necessary to maintain its optimal amount.

Silage is usually stored on cattle farms. When the phytomass is placed in special trenches, respiration and fermentation processes begin to occur, causing an increase in temperature. In the process of breathing the residual amount of oxygen in the silage, the phytomass heats up and loses some of the nutrients and substances. There are also various microorganisms in the silage. It is desirable that lactic acid microflora predominate, since acetic acid and oil bacteria degrade the quality of the feed.

With access to air, the development of aerobic microbes, including molds, is possible. The ensiling process continues until a pH level of 4.2 is reached. During this time, a certain mass fraction of sugar accumulates, which is called the sugar minimum.