If you’ve stumbled across this by accident, let’s start by making it clear, we’re not going to be looking at moisturising and deep cleansing, this is all about the face of the silage clamp. Even if you don’t take much care of your own face, in this piece we will look at why you really should be taking good care of your silage face.

Why is the face so important?

The overall aim of the entire silage making process is to preserve the feed value of the crops you have grown. Hopefully you have done a good job so far and the crop in the clamp has only lost a small percentage of its overall feed value. Whilst it sits there, it’s pretty stable and the values are locked in place. The risky bit is opening it up and starting to use the silage.

It’s easy to think of the silage in the clamp as a stable safe product but really it is far more of a living thing. The ensiling process really just hit the pause button on the degrading breakdown of the crop. As soon as you open the silage up to the atmosphere – and in particular the oxygen in the air – the pause is lifted. The exposed bit of the clamp is the face and this is where the losses begin again and it’s where the crop value is being lost. 

So what can you do about face losses?

This comes down to two areas – avoidable and unavoidable losses, and we will look at the unavoidable losses first. Bizarrely the unavoidable losses can be avoided – or at least minimised, but not once the clamps have been filled. Losses of the stored crop are accelerated by exposure to bacteria, yeasts, moulds and oxygen. All of these are air and water borne so limiting exposure to air and liquids is key.

 The “unavoidable” losses can be minimised by the design of the clamp, as we have seen previously, by optimising the width of the silage face and getting the floor falls correct. In a stable enterprise with established cropping and ration formulations, you can accurately predict the feed out rates of the different silages produced and (hopefully) design a clamp to limit the exposed silage face. In a more dynamic system with varied feedstock supplies, you might need to be a bit more flexible and consider movable dividing walls to split up clamp space. Do this well and you will limit the unavoidable losses to a minimum.

Avoidable losses are more to do with good clamp management, hygiene and practices. Good clamp hygiene is the most basic of requirements and the easiest to achieve. All sorts of unwanted organisms abide in waste silage, muck and slurries so keep them away from the silage face. Think of the silage as an open door supermarket for bacteria yeasts and moulds. Leave a small pile of muck or waste silage sitting at the base of the clamp face and the unwanted visitors will fill their boots and breed faster than rabbits. So it’s really good practice to clean up after every “meal”, tidy up the clamp and leave it clean and ready for the next sitting.

The benefits of a shear grab

Perhaps the most important thing you can do is use a good shear grab to feed out from the clamp. Yes you can make do with a fork or a bucket, but you shouldn’t and I really don’t think you can afford to use anything other than a shear grab. A good shear grab will be costing anywhere for £1,500 to £3,500 in the UK but not using one will cost you far more than that.

A shear grab will do more than anything else to protect the face of your silage, by producing a smooth “closed” face. A bucket or fork will produce an open, torn silage face that lets air into the silage leading to rapid losses and secondary fermentations. These losses can easily be in the region of 5% of the total clamp contents. If you have 2500t in the clamp, a 5% loss will be 125 tonnes of silage that you will be losing. You won’t see it, it’s losses of the feed value of the crop itself. Costs of production will vary but if we assume £25/t for the silage in the clamp, the 5% loss will be costing you £3125 – per year!

A good grab will give many years of service so it’s one of the most cost effective pieces of kit on the farm. So treat it to some new blades whenever they are required and look after the hydraulics to make sure it keeps paying for itself.

Rolling back the sheets

Ideally you would only roll back the sheets far enough to allow for each days feed out. Practically this is unlikely to be appropriate but you should really be rolling back at least twice a week to minimise the exposure of the silage.

So in conclusion, you need to keep your face clean and close shaven!

If you need any further information or help on looking after your face, or for any of the other aspects of silage making covered in this series – contact Jeremy Nash at jeremy@silageconsultant.co.uk

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