Making silage on a small scale from lawn clippings

[3KillerBs]

and do something with the grass that is better than dumping it in the woods.

I usually allow my grass to dry a day before picking it up with the lawn sweeper. Then I can put it into the coop or run without worrying about the moisture.

 

[ChicFil- A]

I feel like trying anything to supplement chicken feed as things are getting just a tad pricey!!!

 

[raingarden]

I feel like trying anything to supplement chicken feed as things are getting just a tad pricey!!!

I know the feeling. I decided to try eating more chicken.

 

[saysfaa]

The hens are eating the last of the vegetables that are still growing in the garden (despite being buried under several inches of snow for a while). When that is gone, I'll open the barrels and see what happened.

In the meantime, I care about the nutrition of it for future projects so....

The first thing I checked was how much it cost to get it tested. I'm willing to pay more than it is "worth" out of curiosity. But not that much more - $160. That is simply too much for feeding four hens.

So, here are the best numbers I've found so far. I don't think they are very good; but they are something.

Our lawn is mostly fescue. It was cut as a lawn; generally the ranges given for fescue haylage try to optimize between the better yield of cutting later and the higher nutrition of cutting sooner. Even their "cutting sooner" is considerably later than we cut our lawn.

Our lawn is also very, very well fertilized. Much more so than a typical field.

The University of Arizona has a pdf "Amino Acid Compostion of Rough Fescue" by Kaldy, Johnston, Smolieak published in 1980 that says rough fescue, (ungrazed, clipped at the leaf stage of growth) has

14.4 plus or minus 2.18 % protein vs 20.3 % for alfalfa

6.6 g Lysine per 100 g protein vs 6.1 for alfalfa

2.2 plus or minus 0.26 g Methionine per 100 g vs 1.8 for alfalfa

Attra.ncat.org website found that in the summer, forage (tall fescue, orchardgrass, red clover, and white clover) had higher MET levels than in the fall (0.31% vs. 0.17%, respectively).

-and side note "chicory was an especially attractive forage to hens and had a moderate MET content (0.40%). "

Hopefully, I will find some better info later.

And Met is not the only thing I will be looking for but it is all I got to so far.

 

[saysfaa]

This attempt resulted in compost, not haylage.

I clearly did not have a good seal across the top.

I will try again next year.

 

[Magnumchicken]

Glad to see you tried this. I came close to doing this in 5 gal buckets, but chickens ate all my alfalfa before I got a chance to cut it.

The article you quote, is that factoring in wet weight. I always knew alfalfa to be 30 to 40% protein content on a dry weight basis. Lycene is what Australians call alfalfa. But don't blame them, they are all standing upside down.

I've accidently made silage by cutting and piling grass clippings deep. The inner part became silage for a while before rotting.

Usually farmers are making silage almost immediately after cutting. Then pack it super tight and wrap with no air. I've never heard of farmers do molasses etc on a large scale. Silage is wettest and considered best, but farmers don't like hauling all that water so they resort to haylage and hay.

I do know cows love silage way more than the same plants unfermented.

I love the comments from people who are like oh my how dare you give your chickens rotting food rather than lobster and organic microgreens. Well, I make silage for myself and family all the time. Pickles, sauerkraut, fermented radish, kimchi (fermented with a little raw clam is the secret) not to mention I buy blue cheese, yogurt, sourdough bread, beer etc. in fact the bacteria help with digestion. In fact I'll try fermenting anything. I just add 35 grams or one ounce of salt to one quart jar, fill to the top with whatever veggie and water, and vent daily. Also wet aged steak is the same concept, keep all the air out and sit at cold temp.

If I had to guess, air was probably your biggest enemy. The things other than grass may not have been needed, and I don't think you need to worry about being too wet if you have no air involved. But if you got compost, then you had air. I've removed most of my grass and replaced it with alfalfa for chicken feed, and sorghum to make my own bedding for the coops.

 

[Magnumchicken]

Another note. Midwest labs does soil and plant analysis testing. They can do silage and also test your chicken manure for fertilizer quality as well. You say your lawn is well fertilized. I thought my garden was too until I tested. PH was off, some things really low, some really high. The costs were 15 to 25 per test.

 

[Silexian]

I think I will give making small batch silage/haylage a go. I think it will be good winter greens for my chickens. That will be another food source produced from my land by me. My goats should benefit from it also. The few times that I have fed silage to my cattle. They ate every little crumb of it.

 

[saysfaa]

Another note. ...

Many thanks!!!!

I found one lab that did tested silage and stopped looking because of the cost. This seems much more doable. And I will test the lawn soil too; possibly other testing. We did only the garden last year.

 

[NatJ]

This attempt resulted in compost, not haylage.

I clearly did not have a good seal across the top.

I will try again next year.

Thank you for updating. It's nice to know what happened so we can all learn from them, even if you didn't get the result you wanted.

Lycene is what Australians call alfalfa.

Do you have a source for that?

"Lucerne" and "alfalfa" are definitely two names for the same plant, but I have never heard of it being called "Lycene," and google didn't find it either.