The rumbling up the drive, in the early morning hours on a sunny day in May, is once again here. This rumbling only happens once a year, usually in May and lasting for only two to three days. It feels as though I just wrote about this, but it's already been a year!
Silage is here.
Silage is a mixture of fermented oats, rye grass and some other grasses and it is mixed in with grain by the tractor load to feed 250 cows and 200 heifers.
The silage is dumped onto the conveyor belt (the green platform you see) which then gets pushed into the plastic bags one truck load at a time. It takes about 3-4 minutes to unload one truck load. This happens over and over until 1600 tons of silage has been delivered and bagged.
The purpose of keeping silage in bags is to prevent air from getting in and causing it to spoil. The same as storing your own food in an airtight container. When all is finished, we end up with seven bags that vary in length from 100 feet to 250 feet long.
So when you see these long white tubes at a dairy farm you might drive by, know that it's food for the cows.
This is what silage looks like up close....
Here's a link to see everything we feed our dairy cows..... What dairy cows eat.
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