Wabigoon
Am I seeing that right? Is it just spread out on the ground? How do you feed it to the cows, scoop it up or just let the cows at it? Do they gain weight off it? I know it's a lot of questions, I have never raised cows so just trying to learn. I hope to have cows before long.
Thanks in advance.[/quote]
I’m not the OP but raised on a Kansas beef farm where we used cane silage for cattle feed. My brother runs the farm these days and had his 40 acres cut yesterday.
To your questions-
I believe that this silage is stored in a trench cut into a hill side, that’s what we did. The trench could be 12-15 feet deep and 20-50’ wide. Some silos are made of tilt up concrete walls, and there is the common upright silo and the newer option of long large plastic bags.
When feeding it, you scoop it from the silo into a feed wagon or truck that has augers in it. Then you drive next to a long set of feed bunks, and turn on the augers and drive parallel and next to the bunks. The silage is augered into the feed bunks. There may be other methods of distribution, but you don’t just turn the cattle loose in the silage.
Yes the cattle gain weight off it. Often there are grains and supplements added to the silage in the feed truck, to get the right balance of nutrients for the best weight gain.