Loses of nutrients during conservation of hay and silage

Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep. Hay is also fed to pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs. Pigs may be fed hay, but they do not digest it as efficiently as more fully herbivorous animals. Hay is fed when or where there is not enough pasture or rangeland on which to graze an animal, when grazing is unavailable due to weather (such as during the winter) or when lush pasture by itself is too rich for the health of the animal. It is also fed during times when an animal is unable to access pasture, such as when animals are kept in a stable or barn.

Silage is fermented, high-moisture fodder that can be fed to ruminants (cud-chewing animals like cattle and sheep)[1] or used as a . biofuel feedstock for anaerobic digesters. It is fermented and stored in a process called ensiling or silaging, and is usually made from grass crops, including corn (maize), sorghum or other cereals, using the entire green plant (not just the grain). Silage can be made from many field crops, and special terms may be used depending on type (oatlage for oats, haylage for alfalfa but see below for the different British use of the term haylage).[2] Silage is made either by placing cut green vegetation in a silo, by piling it in a large heap covered with plastic sheet, or by wrapping large bales in plastic film.

Silage must be made from plant material with a suitable moisture content, about 50% to 60%, depending on the means of storage, the degree of compression, and the amount of water that will be lost in storage. For corn (maize), harvest begins when the whole-plant moisture is at a suitable level. For pasture-type crops, the grass is mowed and allowed to wilt for a day or so until the moisture content drops to a suitable level. The plant material is collected, chopped into pieces about 0.5 in (1.3 cm) long and packed. In the early days of mechanized agriculture, stalks were cut and collected manually using a knife and horsedrawn wagon, and fed into a stationary machine called a "silo filler" that chopped the stalks and blew them up a narrow tube to the top of a tower silo. Current technology uses mechanical forage harvesters that collect and chop the plant material, and deposit it in trucks or wagons. These forage harvesters can be either tractor-drawn or self-propelled. Harvesters blow the silage into the wagon via a chute at the rear or side of the machine. Silage may also be emptied into a bagger, which puts the silage into a large plastic bag that is laid out on the ground.

Storage losses The percentage of moisture in hay at storage directly affects its nutrient and dry matter losses. The higher the moisture content at storage, the greater the losses. High moisture conditions allow hay to heat up, which causes losses. The degree of heating that develops during storage depends on the moisture of the hay and its density, size and shape in storage. Tight round bales suffer fewer losses than do loose ones. The main factor in controlling nutrient loss or retention in storage is exposure to moisture. Research has shown that a firm round bale stored outside for 1 year loses 22 percent of its dry matter. When stored outside for 2 years, the same bale loses 25 percent dry matter meaning that it has only 75 percent of its original weight remaining for feeding. The most nutrient losses occur on the outer portion of the bale. In the Overton study, large round bales of coastal bermudagrass hay were stored for 112 days. During

that period, the protein content dropped by almost 2 percent in the middle of the bale and by 14 percent on the outside. The digestible dry matter decreased 11 percent in the middle and 32 percent on the outer surface. A round bales greatest loss occurs at the bottom of the bale where it touches the soil. Purdue University conducted a study of round bales that were stored inside, outside on the ground or outside on crushed rocks: The bale stored inside retained 92 percent of its original weight. The bale stored outside on crushed rock retained 85 percent of its original weight. The bale stored outside on the ground retained only 76 percent of its original weight. The results indicate that producers should store bales in well-drained areas where moisture does not accumulate and water will run off.

Respiration from plant tissues: Forage plants are living tissues that continue to respire when cut until the moisture content falls below 40 percent. If the drying conditions are poor (such as with high humidity, cloudy skies or low temperatures), the plant will use more of the readily digestible carbohydrates, sometimes up 10 to 15 percent of the original dry matter. Researchers at the Overton Agricultural Experiment Station studied the effects of drying on the crude protein content and TDN of coastal bermudagrass hay. They found that the crude protein content dropped from 11.1 percent at cutting to 8.9 percent after 2 days of drying. In that same period, TDN dropped from 51.6 percent to 42 percent.

Feeding losses The amount of hay lost during feeding depends on the feeding system and on the amount allocated per animal per feeding time. An efficient feeding system should keep losses to a practical minimum. Feeding losses are caused mostly by trampling, leaf shatter, chemical and physical deterioration, fecal contamination, over consumption and refusal. To some extent, you can control these losses by proper management. Management decisions include feeding method, intervals between feedings, amount of hay fed at one time, weather conditions and the number of animals fed. The largest hay losses occur when large hay stacks are fed without animal restrictions. The lowest hay losses result from hand feeding livestock the amount they will consume at one time. However, the labor expense for the big hay stack is lower, and hand feeding requires extensive labor. The most economical feeding system is somewhere in between.

Key findings The increased number of wrap layers improved film seal effectiveness. In bales wrapped with two layers the film seal was less effective, while increasing the number of layers significantly improved the film seal: the time taken for air to re-enter the four and six layers bales was five to seven times longer compared to the two layers bales. Significant reduction of visible moulds coverage with the increase of the numbers of wrap layers. Bales wrapped with two layers of film recorded 50% of moulds coverage on the bale surface. Increasing the number of wrap layers reduced the risk of air penetrating the bale and significantly decreased mould coverage. As a result, the mean mould cover was only 9.5% and 1.5% on bales wrapped respectively with six and eight layers. Significant reduction of DM losses with the increase of the numbers of wrap layers. Applying four layers of films resulted in 3-times lower DM losses then when wrapped with only two-layers, and 10-times lower DM losses when wrapped with six layers. Bales wrapped with eight layers, DM losses were very small and in many bales were nil. Generally the number of layers had no significant influence on silage chemical composition. Only the butyric acid, total protein and WSC (Water Soluble Carbohydrates) concentration significantly increased as the numbers of layers increased from two to eight. .