Watch easy corn silage making process with the help of silage making machine. Silage made this way can be used for Cows, Goats and Sheep. The video shows the step by step process of silage preparation. Kindly note that the farmer uses this silage for his dairy cows and it's not for sale.
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SILAGE MEANING:
Silage is fermented, high-moisture fodder that contains high nutritional values. Silage is cut green plant material that is sealed in a concrete pit or plastic bags without air and water. With the help of microorganisms, the sugar contained in green fodder is converted into lactic acid, which helps to preserve the green fodder for a longer duration. Silage can be stored up to two years and still have up to 85% of the energy and protein value of the original fodder crop.
WHY SILAGE MAKING IS NECESSARY?
Silage is one of the important methods for storage of green fodder for dairy animals & it is necessary to adopt this method by Indian cattle and goat & sheep farmers for situations like drought or heavy rainfall or scarcity of fodder.
BEST SILAGE CROPS:
To prepare best quality silage, cereal green fodder like Green fodder maize, Fodder sorghum, Bajara, Hybrid Napier, Sugar cane tops, etc are required. Preference for cereal green fodder (monocots) is due to it has more sugar content than protein, as sugar is utilised in the fermentation process to make lactic acid by microorganisms. Also, these cereal fodder crops have a hard stem, which takes more time for drying in making hay of these crops, so it is better to use these kinds of crops for making silage than dry fodder.
BENEFITS OF SILAGE MAKING:
- Silage keeps all parts of fodder in an appropriate condition for feeding than any other system of storage of fodder.
- Silage requires less space for storage than hay, as it is pressed in pit/bag. For daily cutting, transporting & chaffing of fodder in a traditional way requires more labour & time but in case of silage, fodder cutting, transport, chaffing is done at one time only, so it is less labour & time-consuming practice. Land under fodder cultivation is emptied, and immediately it is used for plantation of other fodder crops. So farmers’ can take more crops in the same land in a year against the traditional way were land is reserved for fodder until all crops are harvested.
- Due to lactic acid in silage, it is easily digestible to animals, so the energy required for digestion is used for other purposes like milk production, etc
- Silage is tasty & flavoured, so it increases the appetite of dairy animals.
- Due to the treatment of additive for silage, farmers can supply energy, mineral & vitamins to goats.
- Silage plays an important role in the fattening of rams as it enhances the growth rate.
SILAGE PREPARATION:
- Harvest fodder crop at milking stage (70-80 days for corn) mature stage is not good for preparing silage as its sugar content is decreased and fibre percentage is increased.
- After harvesting, let it dry for 2 hours so that moisture content of fodder decreases from to around 70%. Care to be taken to avoid silage making in rainy days or crops containing dewdrops in winter season because moisture is more in this situation, there may be chances for development of mould in silo pit during the storage period.
- For making best quality silage select and chaff best silage crop like corn.
- Per ton of chaffed green fodder requires 1 kg Salt, 2 kg powdered jaggery, 250 ml of Butter Milk
- Prior to filling silo pit, clean & dry it. Or use Silo Bags.
- Cover with plastic film inside the pit in such way that it will cover all sides.
- Fill chaffed green fodder in pit or bag making a layer of 6" to 1'. And press hard so that no air is remaining.
- Spread over Salt, Jaggery and Buttermilk.
- Repeat the process layer by layer till the pit or the bag is filled to the brim.
- Finally, cover the plastic in the pit or the mouth of the bag and place something heavy so that the air does not enter inside. Also, can place the dry hay as the top layer inside so that the air does not touch the silage.
USAGE OF SILAGE FOR COWS, GOATS, SHEEP:
After 45 days, silage is ready as feed for animals. Initially open the pit or bag from one side of for use. Introduce silage to animals in small quantities by adding it with chaffed green fodder to develop a taste to animals. Once animal likes the sweet-sour taste of silage they will eat it with good liking.
GOOD QUALITY SILAGE:
Odour - Good quality silage has a sweet & sour smell & taste.
Colour - Good quality silage has a faint green or brownish colour. Rotten silage will be black.
pH Value - Good quality silage has a pH of 3.5 to 4.2.
Note: If the silage while filling pit or bag is not pressed well there will be the growth of fungus and it will be mouldy. DO NOT feed this type of silage to the animals, discard that part of the silage.
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