Pat O’Connell milks a herd of over 80 cows outside Milford, Co. Cork. During silage season, Pat harvests approximately 65ac of silage every year.
Maintaining quality silage for milk production on the farm has not always been straightforward. Pat has previously had issues with silage spoilage, predominantly from birds.
He commented on this problem, saying: “The main issue with our silage storage has been the crows. They tend to land on top of the pit and dig their claws in.”
Pat has used several different products in recent years to deal with this problem with varying results, but has now found the combination of Rhino protection nets and Clingseal clamp sheets far more durable and effective.
Speaking about the ease of using the protection nets, the dairy farmer said: “You can buy the nets at the right size to suit the pit. With the protection nets, the silage is kept safe and the plastic is kept tight along the sides of the pit and all along the joints.”
Pat has found this ideal as this has led to a large reduction in spoilage on the farm, ensuring healthy silage is maintained long into the winter.
Saving maize and grass silage with less hardship in Co. Wexford
Anne and John Fitzgerald milk a herd of 120 cows near New Ross, Co. Wexford. They cut 80-85ac of grass silage and also store maize in pits for winter forage.
The Fitzgerald’s major issue traditionally has been finding patches of mould in their silage pits.
“We’ve had huge problems with starlings and crows nesting and attacking silage which leads to awful wastage.
“It breaks your heart in winter to see silage has been spoiled, and the same goes for the maize”.
Anne commented that since using Rhino protection nets, she has seen ‘no spoilage’ on either grass or maize silage, “even with thousands of crows flying around”.
Saving hardship
The Fitzgeralds have found that the protection nets save a lot of hardship, adding: “There is no panic for tyres and it’s very easy to use compared to having one large plastic sheet over the pit.”
For these reasons, Anne is happy to recommend Rhino protection sheets to any farmer looking to achieve similar results this silage reason.
Minimising storage losses in Co. Kilkenny
Damien Aylward is a progressive young farmer working in partnership with his father Michael. They farm around 190ac of land at Melville near Mullinavat in south Kilkenny, close to Waterford city.
The Aylward family have a high-yielding herd of 85 mainly Holstein Friesian cows and are moving into winter milk production. They also finish 50 cattle, mainly Angus and Fleckvieh cross each year.
The cows are milked in a 10-unit herringbone parlour. Average yield is a very respectable 7,050L sold and 580kg of solids per cow.
Milk production is optimised from grass and top-quality silage – both arable and grass. Cows receive 1.1t of ration. This is a combination of in-parlour dairy nuts and a total mixed ration (TMR) fed using a Strautman 1201 verti-mix tub mixer wagon.
According to Damien: “Maize silage complements the grass silage as it is high in starch and fibre and is slowly digested in the rumen.”
So, in 2018, they had 190t of forage maize grown on contract. Last year, they reseeded 38ac of land with barley, grass seeds and peas.
Silage is an expensive feed to make and conserve so Damien and Michael were determined to minimise in-store losses. So they used the new Clingseal film to cover the arable silage. Covering the pit then with a heavy 400-gauge black silage cover.
Damien and his father were delighted with the results both years. The storage losses for their maize was reduced significantly; therefore, they are happy to recommend Clingseal to other farmers conserving their valuable silage.
Clingseal: A new high-performance clamp sheet
According to the distributor Rhino, Clingseal significantly reduces top and shoulder spoilage and costly losses at the clamp face.
Designed for use with a 400-gauge Rhino silage sheet, it is a flexible clamp film that is used directly beneath traditional heavier silage sheeting. It is applied to the silage clamp before the application of the uppermost silage sheeting and any weights.
Clingseal has proven to help eliminate air pockets and provides a close-fitting air barrier to significantly reduce top and shoulder losses from aerobic spoilage.
Results have also found that it provides a better air seal to facilitate a faster, more efficient fermentation process, resulting in silage with greater nutritional value and increased dry matter intake (DMI) potential.
Under commercial silage-making conditions, research has shown that total DM losses of 25% can be expected from field to feed out, whilst in-silo losses of 5% to 18% are typical.
Research by Teagasc and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) at Hillsborough has confirmed similar storage losses for clamp silage made in Ireland.
Further information
For more information, call: 042-9660-243; or e-mail: [email protected].
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