Hay ≠ silage. Hay is tedded and dried grass/straw. Silage is grass that has been fermented to make it easier for cows to digest.
I grew up in farm country surrounded by pigs, horses, cows, and an absolute FUCKTON of tobacco, corn, and soybeans. Also a fair amount of weed if you knew which cornfields to go into.
Silage often has species in it that are hell on horses, like clover and ryegrass. And silage can just be piled and covered to ensile, we put up about 2500 tons of it each year, both hay and cereal silage.
In fact, I’m prepping the swather right now to start cutting for a silage chopper showing up this week.
TIL. Apparently the farmers in my parents area are a bit more picky. They made hay for the horses, and silage for the cows. The pigs get slop, grain, and any bio-trash that’s available.
Canadian. Actually, it’s what I would say is a small to medium sized farm, we have about 350 cows which is about average for cattle operations around here, but we also do about 2000 ac of grain production as well, canola/barley/oats/peas.
You’d probably have seen a lot of corn silage in the US, which is rare here, corn takes too many heat days for us, though of course that’s changing. We will do barley or oats into silage in August, besides a round of hay silage at this time of year.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Hay ≠ silage. Hay is tedded and dried grass/straw. Silage is grass that has been fermented to make it easier for cows to digest.
I grew up in farm country surrounded by pigs, horses, cows, and an absolute FUCKTON of tobacco, corn, and soybeans. Also a fair amount of weed if you knew which cornfields to go into.
ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Silage often has species in it that are hell on horses, like clover and ryegrass. And silage can just be piled and covered to ensile, we put up about 2500 tons of it each year, both hay and cereal silage.
In fact, I’m prepping the swather right now to start cutting for a silage chopper showing up this week.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 months ago
TIL. Apparently the farmers in my parents area are a bit more picky. They made hay for the horses, and silage for the cows. The pigs get slop, grain, and any bio-trash that’s available.
ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Canadian. Actually, it’s what I would say is a small to medium sized farm, we have about 350 cows which is about average for cattle operations around here, but we also do about 2000 ac of grain production as well, canola/barley/oats/peas.
You’d probably have seen a lot of corn silage in the US, which is rare here, corn takes too many heat days for us, though of course that’s changing. We will do barley or oats into silage in August, besides a round of hay silage at this time of year.