How to make silage: how to make silage for beginners

Farmers often wonder how to make silage. Silage is a high-moisture fermented food that can be fed to cattle, goats, sheep, and other ruminants or ruminants (Wikipedia).

Silage is fermented and stored in a process called silage, silage or silage. Silage is usually obtained from herbaceous crops, including sorghum, corn, barley, oats, millet or other grains. Whole green plants (not just grains) are used to make silage.

Although silage can be produced from many major crops, specific terms may be used depending on the type. For example, oat silage is called oat silage and hay silage is alfalfa silage.

Ensiling is actually made by a variety of methods such as placing cut green vegetation in a bin or pit, piling the vegetation in a large head and pressing to remove as much oxygen as possible, then covering with a sheet plastic, or wrap in large rounds. bales tight with plastic wrap. .

Why feed silage to animals?

Silage is rich in nutrients for animals and is good for their health. The silo ensures high milk and meat productivity and keeps the animals healthy.

The silo is particularly useful for animals during the dry season. Silage is delicious, laxative, highly digestible, nutritious and requires less storage space than hay. In short, “silage increases overall productivity and keeps animals healthy.”

What is the silo used for?

Before discussing more about how to make silage, you should know more about using silage. Here are common ways to use a silo.

  • Silage is certainly a very good source of nutritious animal feed and is widely used as livestock feed.
  • Silage is used to increase the weight of animals over a short period (especially in sheep and goats).
  • The silo is used to feed dairy cows and help produce more milk.
  • The silo is used to feed the animals in the summer when there is no space for natural grazing.
  • It is used as animal feed and can be used by most animals such as cows, buffaloes, sheep and goats.

How to make a silo?

The silo manufacturing process is divided into several processes. You have to make the right plan and do everything according to the silage making plan.

First, decide what kind of crop you want to grow for silage, choose a dry place to dig a hole on a slightly sloping site, chop the greens with a chopper, then prepare and store the silage.

However, here we tell you how to make silage for your livestock.

Type of harvest

First, decide what type of crop will be grown for silage production.

You can choose from hybrid and perennial crop varieties that can be grown in a short time and produced repeatedly.

The cultivation of sorghum, maize, barley, oats, millet or other cereals is very well suited for the production of silage.

Choose a dry place

Choose a safe, dry place to dig the pit. Choose a site on slightly sloping ground, and the depth of the hole should decrease from the upper side of the sloping ground to the lower side, giving the shape of a wedge.

The size, shape and dimensions of the pit depend on the amount of food stored.

For example, you need to dig a hole of about 2 cubic meters to make 20 bags of silage. And for such a pit you will need about 10 meters of polyethylene and 30 liters of molasses.

cut greens

After making a bone, collect the greens and cut it into small pieces using a straw cutter. Cut the greens into 1 cm pieces.

cover the bottom

Cover the bottom of the hole with a sheet of plastic to keep the greens from touching the ground. Also cover all sides of the hole.

Put the chopped greens

Then place the chopped herbs in the pit, spread them out in a thin layer and repeat the process until a third of the pit is covered.

Sprinkle with molasses

Dilute 1 liter of molasses with 3 liters of water. And evenly sprinkle the preserved greens with the solution.

It will be good to use a garden sprayer to distribute the solution. This will help prevent feed rot.

Spraying the solution throughout the silo will help feed microorganisms, speed silage fermentation, and prevent silage from rotting.

Click on the greens

Then press down on the greens with your feet or something heavy to exhale the air and protect the greens from the mushrooms.

Do this very carefully as too little air can even cause fungus and food damage.

Add more greenery

Add more greenery to the pit by squeezing and making room inside the pit. Repeat the spray with molasses and press again. Do this constantly until the hole fills in the shape of a rock.

cover the hole

After the last pressing, cover the top of the core with a plastic sheet. Covering the top is important to prevent the silo from coming into contact with water and, if possible, dig a small trench on the sides of the hole.

Fill the hole with soil

Cover the top with soil, after pressing and covering the top with polyethylene. This will remove the air and prevent damage to the poly from rain, birds or other animals.

leave the hole

Leave the hole until there is a shortage of food. Because preservation by fermentation can take time, even weeks.

But before using you need to wait at least 2 weeks. Silage obtained in this way can be stored for a long time, usually up to 2 years.

Use of silos

Open a pit under the slope to use the silage. Then collect food for silage for a day and close the pit. Repeat the process if you need a feed silo.

These are the steps to make good quality silage to feed your animals. Hope you learned a lot about how to make animal silage. To be in a good health!

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