> One �other nice thing about corn silage is that it is not subject to the
> harvest �losses and risks that hay often faces.
Hi,
There is plenty that can go wrong. <grin>
One year, we chopped only about 40 loads of corn, and we had 200 cows to feed
as well as the heifers.
This was in the "Longo" years when we were almost totally dependent on corn
silage.
Those 40 loads only made a little pile, in one far corner, of one of our
bunkers.
What happened was that it started to rain and just never stopped.
We tried putting two big tractors on the chopper and two more pulling the
trucks. We had to give up right at the time when we were darn near out of
feed. It was pretty scary.
In early Jan, it went below zero (and stayed there) with almost no snow
initially, and the ground froze solid.
We chopped 200+ acres of dry corn off frozen ground, some of that time through
deep snow.
I had a 100 gal dump tank which we used to flush the parlor floor, which I
rigged up on poles so we could dump water into the chopped corn in the
trucks.
I also bought and ran out 400 feet of water hose so we could run a lawn
sprinkler 24 hrs a day in the bunker silos. All this water application was
done during below zero weather. It was very difficult and took some extreme
effort.
Even though that silage was chopped very, very dry, I was able to get enough
water into it that it made normal corn silage. It looked and was actually
the same as normal (September) corn silage.
--
Kindest regards,
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F. W. Owen
Owenlea Holsteins
9430 Spencer Road
Homerville, Ohio 44235
e-mail fwo@bright.net
home page http://www.bright.net/~fwo
voice & fax 330.625.2369
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