Packin' Silage

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!

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The Rumbling of Spring

I was awakened to the sound of a rumbling the other morning, that to me signifies spring is most definitely here.  Rumbling that is only heard on a dairy farm, as far as I know. 

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Our Biggest Delivery of the Year~

As I was headed down our driveway the other day, just before cresting the hill to drive down the hill, I see a very large load traveling up in the opposite direction.  I stop to wait (it's a one lane drive).  The silage trucks are coming.  This means silage delivery will begin the next morning.  Approximately 1600 TONS of silage to be exact.  It will take about 2 1/2 days or so for the delivery to be complete with 13 trucks, working non-stop in the daylight hours traveling to and from the silage fields.  Many truckloads.

This delivery of silage occurs every May when the silage fields are ready to be cut.  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.  Read more about what we feed our cows HERE.

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.

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.

This is what it looks like close up.

Here is Bryce standing in an opening to one of the bags that is currently being used.

Every year the silage trucks pick away at the road (our driveway) leading up to our house.  But this year with all the late, wet weather we've had, has left the ground extremely soft for May and is by far the worst year for wear and tear on our driveway.  Not sure yet, what's going to happen with the driveway.  Yikes!

Happy Tuesday!

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Do Dairy Cows Eat Tofu?

Today we had 25 tons of rolled corn grain delivered
to our Commodities Barn, one of the many grain deliveries throughout the month.

Other shipments that are delivered through the month include:

Almond Hulls ~ 25 tons, delivered once a month.




Whole Cotton Seed ~ 25 tons, every 50 days or so.




DDG (distillers dried grains) ~ 25 tons every 50 days ~ DDG is a by-product of ethanol made from corn.







Rice Bran ~ 25 tons, every 40 days.





Mineral Mix ~ 15 tons, once a month.



Tofu ~ 14 tons, every week. Tofu is in the 'mix' because it's high in fat and protein and helps to increase production.






The 230 dairy cows are fed a total of three tons of grain, 4 1/2 tons of silage(between 2 feedings)in addition to 45-50 bales of Alfalfa every day.





Silage (fermented oat grass) which is contained in long tubular shaped bags, is fed to the dairy cows and the heifers - 4 1/2 tons daily. For the dairy cows, the silage is mixed in with the grain.



The chosen mixture of all grains, silage, tofu and alfalfa help to maintain a healthy, balanced diet for the cows which in turn helps to keep the cows healthy!

The grain and the silage is mixed all together by tractor loads being dumped into the feed wagon load by load. The feed wagon is then pulled by another tractor and driven to the housing barn and shoots the feed out into the feeders for the cows.

COW FACT ~A cow’s body uses part of the food to grow and stay healthy and the other part of the food to make milk.


The 50 head of beef cattle are out on pasture and they are fed 12 bales of oat hay and some alfalfa each day.

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