ENSILAGE ON PLAINS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5503, 20 November 1929, Page 3

ENSILAGE ON PLAINS.

BENEFICIAL CHANGE FOR COWS UTILLISING RANK PASTURE. The conviction that dairy cows on the Hauraki Plains derive considerable benefit from the change of diet provided by ensilage was expressed by a successful Ngatea farmer this week. He is at present cutting a paddock where the grass and weeds are up to the seat of the mower through having been shut up for six weeks. His experience has shown him that cows which had been fed on ensilage during the winter came in better, cleared without difficulty, and produced better than did cows fed on hay and pasture alone. It is generally admitted that there is nothing like silage for keeping up the yield in the summer when pastures start to dry up. Asked whether, in his opinion, the ( feeding of silage tended to cause scour, this farmer said that on the contrary he held that the change of diet promoted better health generally. He had not experienced cases of scour which could in any way be attributed to the feeding of silage. Although quite a number of farmers on the Plains are making stack ensilage at the present time, it is rather surprising that a greater number are not using this means of disposing of the rank grass which is covering their farms. The mowing and removal of the rank growth is in itself good farm practice.

The making of ensilage presents no difficulties other than the work of handling the heavy green crops. Some ensilage makers allow the grass to wilt until the day following cutting, but this is not essential, and experience has shown that losses due to overheating are negligible in working conditions such as obtain on the Hauraki Plains, where big quantities cannot be handled in a day It is difficult to build a good-looking ensilage stack, as it is necessary at all stages to keep the sides higher than the centre, so that they will pack tightly and exclude as much air as possible. Slides are not infrequent, due to unequal heating, and in this connection a useful tip was mentioned by a Ngatea farmer when the subject was under discussion this week. This was to hang a sheet to keep the wind off the stack until it had finished heating up. Unless a stack has been very badly built slides always move into the wind. Weeds make very good silage, and there is no reason to doubt a prevalent statement that a certain Waikato farmer collects all the thistles on the roadsides in his district to make into silage. Indeed, silage made from such fibrous plants as thistles and coarse weeds would probably be particularly beneficial to Plains cattle when pastures were at times soft and watery. There is naturally more waste with stack ensilage than when either pits or silos are used, but on country such as the Hauraki Plains, xyhere pits are out of the question and silos expensive on account of the heavy foundations necessary there remains only the stack method. However, with so much rank growth at the present time it is surprising that more silage is not being made. In silos ensilage will keep for many years, and it is on record that quite good silage was found in some old Roman ruins recently discovered.