HOW TO MAKE SILAGE

Silage

As important as food is to Human so also feed is of utmost importance to Animals in fact, we can say anyone that doesn’t know how to give feed to the animals shouldn’t try to keep any animal at all. However, as we are now aware of the essentiality of feeds to livestock animal, it is important to note that different categories of livestock animals have a specified type of feeds given to them. For instance, Non-Ruminants animals like pigs, poultry birds and rabbit are fed more of formulated and compounded types of feeds that meet their dietary needs to produce optimally while Ruminants animals like cattle, sheep and goat do much better when they are fed with herbs, forages and grasses.

Building on that, getting adequate amount of herbs or forages to feed Ruminants can be a little bit problematic a times due to the seasonality of these forages; the forages are more abundant in rainy seasons than in the dry season. Hence, the need for us to develop a way of preserving and storing these herbs and grasses when we have them in abundance so that we can feed them fresh and clean without them losing their nutritive values to our animals during the scarce time. However, there are two common ways of preserving pasture grasses, these are; Hay and Silage but, we shall be discussing silage here extensively.

Silages are green forages and pasture grasses cut and stored under anaerobic condition i.e. in the absence of oxygen to feed the Sheep, Goat and Cattle in the off-seasons when green forages and grasses are not readily available. They are of good taste and texture, sweet aroma and very high in nutritive values. Silage maintains the freshness and greenness of the forages and because of this animals love eating them.

Follow are the steps taken in making Silage;

STEP 1: CUT/ HARVEST GREEN YOUNG TENDER GRASSES OR FORAGES

 

Pasture Grasses

The main ingredient used in making silage is grasses or forages. Cut young, fresh and tender green grasses from the pasture or any open field you can easily access but, avoid cutting matured grasses because, they are of very low nutrients compared to the young ones and they are not very palatable for animals because, they are tough to taste. Some of the common grasses that can be used for silage include; Panicum maximum, elephant grass, green waste from leguminous crops, cereal straws and leaves and Centrosema to mention a few.

STEP 2: CHOP THE HARVESTED GRASSES/FORAGES INTO PIECES

Chopping of grasses

After cutting the grasses from the pasture or field around you the next thing to do is to chop them into smaller pieces. There are two ways to go about this;

·         Mechanically through the use of machine that help to slice into pieces the grasses

·         Manually, where knife or cutlass is used to slice the grasses into tiny pieces

STEP 3: BAGGING OF THE CHOPPED GRASSES INTO AIR-TIGHT SACKS

Bagging of Chopped grasses

After chopping, the next thing in line is to bag the grasses into sacks for storage. Fill the chopped grasses into a sack that has it inner side lined with nylon or polythene materials and this is to prevent entry of air into the sack and exist of heat that will enhance the proper fermentation of the grasses. Ensure to fill the sack in layers and press it down to expel all air from the sack and between the grasses. Cover or seal the mouth of the sack tightly when completely filled up.

Note; you can also add some feed ingredients like corn bran, rice bran or wheat offal to the chopped grasses before bagging to boost and improve the nutritional quality of the silage. It is also advisable to put the sack filled with the grasses in a confined container with a cover like a drum to make fermentation easy to take place and timely.

STEP 4: STORE SILAGE PROPERLY

Stored silage

It is advisable to put the sacks containing the chopped grasses or forages in drums to prevent against rodent attack and to give optimal condition necessary for proper fermentation of the grasses. Ensure the drums are not rested on the wall or too close to the wall and cover the drums properly. However, if drum is not available, place sacks containing the chopped grasses on a raised platform free from wall and rodents to avoid exposure of the grasses to air and absorption of moisture by the grasses which can cause the grasses to decay thereby, spoiling the silage.

 

Silage stored in Drums

After all these steps have been taken judiciously, the silage will be ready after 21 days of fermentation and is good to be used as animal feed.

Note as well, the quality of your silage depends on the level of your adherence to these above steps and you can store silage for as long as you want in as much that you store them properly.