Kip Karges (Full Presentation)

Eric Buck Author

08/01/2024 Added

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Optimizing Your Silage Investment: Key Takeaways

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[00:00:00.000]I want to go ahead and open up for questions for the audience regarding the overall theme
[00:00:14.920]of the conference here today.
[00:00:17.120]So I know some of you out there have got some questions, so here's your opportunity to fire
[00:00:23.680]away.
[00:00:24.120]Everybody must be tired.
[00:00:28.860]Who's got one?
[00:00:33.200]Yeah, we can repeat the questions for the people online.
[00:00:36.940]So just raise your hand if you've got a question.
[00:00:41.260]Yeah, I didn't want to sit by Jim, so for those online, the question was, perhaps earlier
[00:01:11.240]today or previous to today, I've talked up corn silage as a roughage source for finishing
[00:01:17.620]cattle, and Jim just poo-pooed that idea, as they say.
[00:01:23.100]No, what's that?
[00:01:25.600]Yeah, and in fairness, I don't want to speak for Jim because he can comment too, and he
[00:01:33.680]will.
[00:01:33.900]He suggested that feeding higher silage inclusions, especially for the corn silage,
[00:01:41.220]for smaller farming feeding operations, is a pretty high priority use.
[00:01:45.940]And by the way, I don't disagree with his priority on the backgrounding side because
[00:01:51.120]you get the extra gain, especially if you get the protein right, which he went through,
[00:01:55.140]I think, eloquently.
[00:01:56.260]So I think when it comes to rough feed sources and finishing cattle, you know, you all can
[00:02:04.640]do the economics, and it's actually fairly straightforward, and so to justify what Jim
[00:02:11.200]said, in his example, he was calculating stocks were maybe a better buy as a rough feed source.
[00:02:16.340]If you truly just need rough feed, you've got byproducts.
[00:02:20.200]Josh Benton, who now directs our beef unit here at NREC, in his PhD program 12, 13, 14
[00:02:27.680]years ago, did that work, where he compared corn silage to corn stalks to alfalfa hay,
[00:02:34.080]and in the old days, alfalfa hay and corn silage would be much better rough feed sources
[00:02:39.480]than corn stalks.
[00:02:41.180]But if you're feeding enough other wet byproducts, the stalks actually look better.
[00:02:45.460]So I think it's one of those things where some years, stalks might be a buy, and you
[00:02:50.340]can feed them at 6% of the diet, and as long as you've got other wet distiller's grains
[00:02:55.540]or modified distiller's grains in the diet, you should get equivalent performance to corn
[00:02:59.760]silage.
[00:03:00.140]I like corn silage still, from a management standpoint, for a couple reasons.
[00:03:06.660]One is the inventory is in the fall, and you've
[00:03:11.160]got to plan ahead, which is always good for feedlots to do, to have the inventory set
[00:03:15.440]for the year, or at least for much of the year.
[00:03:17.560]So silage has an advantage.
[00:03:19.500]If you have the facilities and the bunker space, the flat storage, whatever, to put
[00:03:24.380]up silage.
[00:03:24.980]Secondly, if you're in corn production area, you can probably access enough corn silage
[00:03:31.180]at that time of year.
[00:03:32.140]And then the thing I really like about corn silage is it's processed into the bunker.
[00:03:38.740]You don't have to process it out into the feedlot.
[00:03:41.140]All that said, though, if you don't do a good job managing shrink, covering the pile and
[00:03:46.280]putting up silage well, you should not, you have no business putting up silage.
[00:03:49.720]You see my point?
[00:03:50.680]So it's hard to say silage is always best because if you don't manage it well, don't
[00:03:54.520]put up silage.
[00:03:55.180]Stocks, if you can buy them, you can access them.
[00:03:59.000]By the way, those stock bales eventually disappear if you just let them sit outside.
[00:04:03.100]What's that called if it just disappears?
[00:04:04.920]Shrink.
[00:04:06.080]So I think silage gets a bit of a bad rap for shrink when all hay is gone.
[00:04:11.120]And all forages, especially bales sitting outside, shrink too.
[00:04:14.940]So I think some years, stocks might be a better buy.
[00:04:17.840]Some years, silage might be a better buy.
[00:04:19.840]I don't know that that changes anything.
[00:04:22.940]We use a combination of both, depending upon the application.
[00:04:25.800]But if you're worried about not having distillers, you're worried about managing inventory,
[00:04:30.080]and you don't want to process stock bales, silage is a pretty good deal.
[00:04:34.620]I'll let Jim justify his ranking from there on.
[00:04:41.100]Good job, Alan.
[00:04:41.980]Anytime you can pit us against each other, you know, it should be entertaining, if nothing else.
[00:04:45.920]So, yeah, obviously not saying that silage is not, that you shouldn't use silage in finishing systems.
[00:04:52.600]My thought process was just think about the megacals, the importance of the megacals going into that system, right?
[00:04:59.340]And for that, you know, two-month period, a little more than two-month period, those megacals going into those cow systems,
[00:05:07.340]by the way, we're asking her to rebreed, and we want to move her a body.
[00:05:11.080]We want to move her a body condition score up at that same time.
[00:05:13.880]I just think that silage fits that energy demand pretty nicely at that time.
[00:05:19.100]And going back to the cost per unit of fiber, back cost per unit, I would probably, well, Galen said this,
[00:05:28.380]but I would, I think corn stalks are yes, no.
[00:05:32.520]I think if you have access to another wet feed ingredient, corn stalks are kind of a no-brainer,
[00:05:37.580]and you have access to the corn stalks in a finishing system.
[00:05:40.640]And if you have access to a feed ingredient, you have access to a feed ingredient,
[00:05:41.060]and if you don't have the ability to bring moisture into the diet,
[00:05:43.460]then I think the priority for silage goes up because it helps really mix the diet well.
[00:05:48.680]You've got more than two issues, but repeating the question for those online.
[00:05:55.080]The question was, you haven't bought into the high silage inclusion diets
[00:06:01.200]because there's some other implications we've not addressed,
[00:06:03.860]one of those being manure and having to haul more manure.
[00:06:07.000]Yes, that's fair.
[00:06:11.040]I know there's a lot of feeders who worry about how much moisture is in the pen.
[00:06:16.000]Is moisture retained more in the pen with high silage diets?
[00:06:20.520]More roughage you feed, more manure, lower digestibility.
[00:06:23.780]That's why their conversions are poorer and gains are less.
[00:06:27.520]All those are fair statements, and yes,
[00:06:29.880]we may not have accounted for two things with the high silage diets,
[00:06:34.600]so just to be upfront about it.
[00:06:36.340]If you're a large feeder, which by the way we've said it doesn't fit
[00:06:41.020]as well in, then you're probably really trying to work on efficiency
[00:06:46.120]of your feed truck routes and getting feed delivered accurately
[00:06:50.660]and quickly and consistently.
[00:06:52.780]More silage, higher silage diets, if your feed truck is limited on weight
[00:06:59.520]and how big your loads can be, that's a limitation.
[00:07:03.220]It's going to increase number of trips or loads and or increase labor,
[00:07:08.020]whatever.
[00:07:09.220]If you're not limited on weight,
[00:07:11.000]then the volume, I don't think, will be offset.
[00:07:14.940]But that's one thing we didn't really discuss today yet.
[00:07:18.160]The manure issue, you know, I think that we need to manage manure.
[00:07:21.940]I think that manure management is very environmental dependent
[00:07:25.440]and where you're located might be an opportunity
[00:07:28.980]in some of these alternative housing systems
[00:07:31.180]like we can see today on the tour.
[00:07:32.840]I'm kind of intrigued on doing some of this high silage work
[00:07:36.860]potentially in our confinement barns
[00:07:39.040]where we will actually measure manure
[00:07:40.980]amounts.
[00:07:41.480]In the old days, when we do this work in open pens,
[00:07:44.540]we can haul the manure out, but we got so much soil
[00:07:47.660]contamination, it's kind of difficult work.
[00:07:49.940]You get a much more accurate estimate.
[00:07:52.000]So I'd like to quantify some of those manure output issues
[00:07:55.320]either in our RCC pens, our solid surface pens,
[00:07:58.080]and in our confinement barn pens as we go forward.
[00:08:01.300]But yeah, I didn't account for that.
[00:08:02.940]Now, I would argue that the manure will
[00:08:05.220]be higher quality manure.
[00:08:07.140]So yes, you may have to haul more manure value.
[00:08:10.960]You may have to haul more volume out or material,
[00:08:12.960]as is material.
[00:08:14.460]But what you're hauling conceptually is also better
[00:08:17.720]because I think that higher fiber manure actually
[00:08:20.140]traps more nitrogen.
[00:08:21.240]This is way off topic from silage.
[00:08:24.220]But by the way, we have to manage nitrogen
[00:08:26.020]better in the future.
[00:08:26.820]And that might be one way to do it.
[00:08:28.760]In fact, some of the first high silage work
[00:08:32.160]that I was involved with, I was a graduate student
[00:08:34.120]24 years ago, more than that, I want to say,
[00:08:37.500]and did that as part of my PhD where we were feeding
[00:08:40.500]higher silage.
[00:08:40.940]Not because we were interested in the higher silage
[00:08:43.540]part of it, it was a way to trap more nitrogen manure.
[00:08:46.280]And by the way, it worked.
[00:08:47.900]That's fair.
[00:08:51.380]So Alan's saying, but if we're going to background calves,
[00:08:56.420]we did some work where we showed that if you background
[00:09:00.100]calves at 75% inclusion, let's just say the 80%
[00:09:03.900]kind of background in silage diet, then step them down
[00:09:06.860]to a traditional amount of forage at 15, halfway through
[00:09:10.920]the, so background them for the first half, finish them
[00:09:13.860]with low rough feeds the second half. We got pretty
[00:09:16.980]much similar performance as just feeding 45% all the
[00:09:20.240]way through. That is true. And the silage use was
[00:09:26.200]about the same. They were a little different. I can't
[00:09:28.460]put statistics on that, but they were a little
[00:09:30.320]different, about the same though. The manure would
[00:09:33.560]be about the same if you were backgrounding versus
[00:09:35.500]finishing. The other thing to point out, and Jim
[00:09:37.640]alluded to this, is that I always used to think
[00:09:40.900]that if we fed 45% silage, we were just finishing
[00:09:44.300]them a little slower and they'd be going out
[00:09:46.560]lighter. But in fact, we can put more frame on
[00:09:51.640]them and actually feed them the 28 days longer
[00:09:54.720]and actually make them bigger going out before
[00:09:56.920]they get too fat. And I know you probably aren't
[00:09:59.380]aware of this, but we make cattle pretty big and
[00:10:01.540]that's been a trend line, right? We're making
[00:10:03.840]cattle bigger and bigger and feeding a higher
[00:10:06.440]silage diet actually puts a little frame on them
[00:10:08.660]so you can make them even bigger at the same
[00:10:10.880]fatness. We're also making cattle fat, so we're
[00:10:14.260]doing. Yeah, the other comment is instead of
[00:10:21.420]having to feed a backgrounding diet and then
[00:10:23.500]transition them over to a finishing diet where
[00:10:25.740]you got to do step-ups included in that, you can
[00:10:28.420]just feed 45 all the way through. And yes, we,
[00:10:31.620]that is another advantage is 45 all the way
[00:10:36.240]through. Other questions or Jim? I just
[00:10:40.860]wanted to point out that Rick has more issues
[00:10:42.460]with Galen than he does with me. Rick, you had
[00:10:44.540]two. You said you only got one. At least, at
[00:10:49.100]least enough cover crop to wean those calves
[00:10:51.620]out. Rick, we have no evidence that, that
[00:10:54.700]there's detrimental effects of not using a
[00:10:57.160]cover crop. Okay. So I think, and here's the
[00:11:01.520]reality. I mean, I don't know if there's any
[00:11:04.100]agronomists in the room that I'm going to
[00:11:05.320]offend, but you better have livestock as a part
[00:11:08.120]of the equation to pay for the cover crop, right?
[00:11:10.840]Because it's pretty tough to make the cropping
[00:11:13.000]system. Clearly, from an ecosystem standpoint,
[00:11:16.660]erosion standpoint, all the things that you just
[00:11:19.000]mentioned and we talked about, there's benefits
[00:11:21.000]there, but there's no way to pay for it. In
[00:11:23.340]other words, there's no bump in yield. So I
[00:11:26.720]think having livestock or cattle as a part of
[00:11:29.420]that system helps pay for the cover crop, and
[00:11:31.700]then you still get, I won't say 100% of the
[00:11:33.800]benefit, but most of the benefit, okay? So, you
[00:11:37.540]know, in my scenario, Jeremy asked a good
[00:11:39.840]question. In my scenario, I'm going to say
[00:11:40.820]in my scenario, if you were to put calves out,
[00:11:42.780]put cover crop on everything, you'd need some
[00:11:45.660]neighbor's calves to come in and graze all of
[00:11:47.720]that to take that, to utilize that forage to pay
[00:11:49.580]for it. Yeah, so the question was, you know,
[00:11:54.060]we've been doing some of this work with silage.
[00:11:56.760]Where are we going from here on silage, and what
[00:11:59.940]would we like to see in the future? Well, I think
[00:12:03.040]that we are always trying to predict what our
[00:12:10.800]opportunities, and some of that's been distillers
[00:12:16.000]grains and use of corn milling byproducts in the
[00:12:19.260]past. Some of that we thought was silage as an
[00:12:23.580]opportunity here more recently, and I think that,
[00:12:28.240]I mean, I'm going to say this because I've joked
[00:12:31.020]about it. We've shown a lot of data where you go
[00:12:33.880]from, for a farmer feeding operation, you go from
[00:12:36.260]15 to 45 percent silage, and I've joked, you know,
[00:12:38.640]how many people have adopted it because you hurt
[00:12:40.780]hormones. I've always said zero, which I can't say
[00:12:43.420]zero because I know a number of people who are
[00:12:45.580]doing it, but it isn't real widely adopted. So I
[00:12:50.640]think there's still opportunity to use more
[00:12:52.240]silage, but if we're going to do it, we also need
[00:12:55.280]to make sure that we have the same emphasis on how
[00:12:59.600]we price it correctly and how it's put up and
[00:13:02.340]managing shrink. So I think some of the reasons
[00:13:05.280]that I've embraced and pushed and tried to help
[00:13:08.340]and been engaged in the
[00:13:10.760]silage conferences over the years is because I think in the beef systems
[00:13:14.100]area, beef producers, we need to do a better job
[00:13:17.180]managing silage. And as I said earlier, if you're not going to manage silage,
[00:13:20.440]don't do anything we just recommended. Because it's
[00:13:23.140]not going to pay off. You'll lose it. It'll be too much shrink.
[00:13:25.660]And anything we just said about advantages will go away.
[00:13:28.100]So I think we're seeing that, though. I do believe
[00:13:32.100]that the beef industry is, you know, we've joked
[00:13:35.120]about dairy industry doing a really good job putting up silage.
[00:13:38.100]They've fed 45% silage.
[00:13:40.740]In their diets for years, right?
[00:13:43.200]So and we commented about how bunkers are covered.
[00:13:46.940]They use the rakes.
[00:13:48.620]But I see a lot of feed yards who are managing surfaces
[00:13:51.980]better, are covering, using inoculants, targeting the right dry matter,
[00:13:57.200]making sure it's packed.
[00:13:58.440]So we're making good progress.
[00:14:00.400]But I don't know.
[00:14:01.580]I guess I'd like to see Nebraska be the number one silage state
[00:14:05.280]instead of whatever the states were.
[00:14:08.200]No, I don't know if that's the thing, but if it makes our producers more
[00:14:10.720]money and we have an opportunity to use those acres better, I think it's great.
[00:14:14.660]The only thing I would add is that Jim said that the cover crops don't pay
[00:14:18.660]unless they're used, and that's true unless somebody's incentivizing them for
[00:14:22.820]other regenerative climate, other carbon purposes.
[00:14:27.320]But if you can get all that benefit and still graze it, then that's even better.
[00:14:31.160]So I'll come in really quick.
[00:14:35.920]I just, one thing to me is really interesting.
[00:14:38.300]I'll give you perspective from the dairy side.
[00:14:40.700]Dairy producers are really keen on changing very quickly to what is available and
[00:14:48.400]what is profitable at the time.
[00:14:50.220]So I think in our roles, especially at the university level,
[00:14:53.520]we try to get as much data and information out there so
[00:14:56.260]that they can do whichever decision they make correctly.
[00:15:00.700]But it's really difficult to be able to actually crystal ball predict.
[00:15:05.000]Because as fast as anything changes, producers have the capacity to adapt.
[00:15:10.680]I can tell you, I went from a state where we were feeding primarily alfalfa to
[00:15:14.960]dairy cows, green chop, and in less than one year,
[00:15:18.280]we lost about 80% of that to corn silage.
[00:15:21.520]Because it was financially beneficial for them.
[00:15:24.820]So again, I think it's our job to get that information out there, but
[00:15:28.900]the market is so volatile and these guys are so good at being able to adapt to
[00:15:34.180]whatever is beneficial at that point that you have to think about it in that,
[00:15:39.040]in the flexible terms.
[00:15:40.660]The tools so that maybe next year silage is not as popular as it is this year,
[00:15:45.340]but eventually that will come back again and the tools are there.
[00:15:47.980]So the comments, so for online, I'm going to repeat some of that.
[00:15:52.600]When you make changes within a dairy systems, it's pretty readily observed
[00:15:58.300]because of the milk output changes are readily observed quickly.
[00:16:01.620]In beef operations, that's a much slower process, right?
[00:16:04.860]You got closeouts, but you make a change and you might need to wait a few months
[00:16:08.780]to really see anything.
[00:16:10.640]And then I would argue because of environment and other changes, it's difficult.
[00:16:15.580]So I would make a, I'm not saying this disparaging on the dairy side,
[00:16:20.800]but I think it's even more critical to rely on research data for decisions in beef systems
[00:16:26.740]because you won't see it at the production level, at least quickly.
[00:16:30.540]So you really got to make sure all your decision making, in my opinion,
[00:16:34.920]is based on good sound science.
[00:16:36.500]Whereas in the milking area, I think it still should be based on good sound
[00:16:40.620]science.
[00:16:41.060]But if you mess up, you'll know it probably in the next week or so.
[00:16:44.160]Yeah, so the question was, is can we use other indicators in the beef systems,
[00:16:49.920]I think is what you're referring to, that would be more rapid indicators of
[00:16:53.560]how well we're doing.
[00:16:54.320]You used fecal analysis as one of those possibilities and examples.
[00:16:58.100]I have some heartburn.
[00:17:00.720]I will share on using fecal analyses.
[00:17:03.420]Not from the standpoint of within an operation, but going across operations and
[00:17:10.220]across.
[00:17:10.600]Because what we're measuring in that case is concentration of some nutrient.
[00:17:15.140]Let's use starch as an example.
[00:17:16.960]If I measure fecal starches, I can measure it in five different operations.
[00:17:22.860]It's very difficult to compare across those five.
[00:17:25.600]You could make an argument that within an operation, if I'm not changing diet
[00:17:30.660]digestibility as much, in other words, I don't add a lot more forage or I don't
[00:17:34.420]add a lot of byproduct or take a lot out.
[00:17:36.980]I haven't changed the amount of fecal output much.
[00:17:39.460]Then I think it could be an indicator of across time within an operation,
[00:17:44.340]but I get a little nervous going too much across operations.
[00:17:47.440]But that's because concentration is not exactly the same thing as digestibility
[00:17:53.540]because you've got to have fecal output.
[00:17:55.200]And a lot of factors influence fecal output, like intake and other ingredients in the diet.
[00:18:01.340]So fecal output is feces is maybe a strategy, although I'm lukewarm on it.
[00:18:08.720]I'd be open to others.
[00:18:10.420]Others can disagree, but you can't really disagree that we don't really measure fecal output.
[00:18:14.480]We're just measuring concentrations.
[00:18:15.860]It's a good question.
[00:18:20.100]The question was, is there anything used, any good information out there,
[00:18:24.040]research data on processing score for the silage
[00:18:27.640]and correlating that in the beef side in terms of performance?
[00:18:31.300]Because there are data available on the dairy side for processing score
[00:18:36.480]and some of the milk output and other important traits for dairy.
[00:18:41.160]You know, and I was asked this question at your processors convention,
[00:18:46.280]and it was a great question.
[00:18:48.920]I don't think we use the kernel processing score or processing score in silage
[00:18:53.740]in the beef space as readily as they do in the dairy.
[00:18:56.720]And I am personally unaware, I'm happy to be proven wrong,
[00:19:00.640]of any good data that shows processing score
[00:19:03.380]and some correlations to performance outcomes in a beef study.
[00:19:06.900]There is good information on kernel processing impacts on beef performance,
[00:19:13.680]either in growing or finishing cattle.
[00:19:15.620]But remember what I said earlier was in beef,
[00:19:19.000]if you're looking at finishing cattle
[00:19:20.720]and you're looking at silage specifically in kernel processing,
[00:19:23.360]and I'm only feeding 10% silage, good luck finding a difference, right?
[00:19:27.800]So we've done a couple studies.
[00:19:29.520]There's some quite old.
[00:19:30.360]There's some quite older work that's been done on kernel processing,
[00:19:32.700]and it improves performance efficiencies.
[00:19:36.000]We think in the beef space it improves the silage by 6% to 7%
[00:19:40.520]in terms of feed conversion.
[00:19:42.760]And then you asked another question,
[00:19:46.300]which was similarly on high-moisture corn and different ways of processing,
[00:19:50.140]and I'd be happy to share this with anybody.
[00:19:52.100]But, yeah, we've done some work here, and some others have,
[00:19:54.540]on hammer milled, rolled, high-moisture corn differences.
[00:19:58.100]I think corn processing work has been more readily done in the beef space
[00:20:03.140]and some better information out there.
[00:20:04.480]Not a lot, though, on your specific question, which was hammer mill and rolled.
[00:20:08.160]But we probably – we use a little different indicators
[00:20:13.100]for how well corn is processed in the beef space,
[00:20:16.140]but there are some indicators.
[00:20:17.300]Most times that's been used for flaking corn,
[00:20:19.880]not quite as much on rolled and high-moisture corn.
[00:20:22.860]The only thing that I would add to that,
[00:20:28.040]since I'm dying on the backgrounding hill,
[00:20:30.680]corn processing, I would argue,
[00:20:33.080]is actually more important in backgrounding calves
[00:20:34.880]than it is in finishing calves at a 15% inclusion.
[00:20:37.460]So an 80% inclusion in the diet
[00:20:39.840]because all of the corn in that diet
[00:20:42.520]is coming from the silage.
[00:20:43.780]The kernel processing is really important.
[00:20:45.660]In a 15, 10, or 15% inclusion,
[00:20:48.040]that's only a small fraction of the corn in the diet,
[00:20:50.680]and so that kernel processing, you won't see it.
[00:20:52.720]Now, you divide the improvement in feed efficiency
[00:20:54.960]by the inclusion, actually agrees pretty well.
[00:20:57.460]It's 6% or 7%, but in terms of what you're going to see
[00:21:00.240]in changing feed efficiency, you're going to see
[00:21:02.260]a bigger result in the backgrounding diet
[00:21:04.020]than you will in the finishing diet.
[00:21:05.060]I would also add that in the analytical side,
[00:21:11.340]at least from what we do in the dairy industry,
[00:21:13.980]we have definitely moved fairly fast forward
[00:21:17.560]to looking at in vitro digestibilities
[00:21:19.300]at a much more accurate sense based on the formulation
[00:21:23.200]software that we use and how it predicts.
[00:21:25.220]So we are analytically allowed
[00:21:27.220]to be a lot better at actually looking at a feedstuff
[00:21:29.680]and saying how this would feed and what the outcome would be.
[00:21:33.280]Obviously, again, a lot of those models
[00:21:35.420]are based on dairy cattle and how
[00:21:37.660]they utilize those nutrients.
[00:21:40.120]So is that for me, Kalil?
[00:21:41.240]Yeah, I'm trying to remember.
[00:21:45.240]So correct me if I'm wrong, the question
[00:21:51.840]was what would be the priority on the whole--
[00:21:56.420]I think--
[00:21:56.920]the silage making process.
[00:21:58.280]I think I would pretty much start from the beginning.
[00:22:05.100]We would try just to get the initial material, the forage,
[00:22:10.020]the best quality.
[00:22:11.480]And sometimes people want to give up that quality
[00:22:14.220]and get more on yield, depending on the crop.
[00:22:16.320]It depends what you want to do, what you're looking for.
[00:22:19.660]But I would pay attention, of course, initially
[00:22:21.660]to that stage of maturity, according
[00:22:23.700]to whatever nutritional needs.
[00:22:26.620]And if we're talking about corn, then they
[00:22:29.380]go pretty much hand in hand with the dry matter content.
[00:22:36.020]Then if it's another type of crop,
[00:22:37.760]you have to either wilt, or you have
[00:22:40.160]maybe to adjust that dry matter and the maturity.
[00:22:43.760]So with that maturity, then you know what type of nutrients,
[00:22:46.640]or you should expect that amount of nutrients
[00:22:49.040]to be on that particular maturity from that crop.
[00:22:52.640]The dry matter, if it's on that proper range,
[00:22:56.320]then you don't need to do adjustments on the chop length.
[00:23:01.660]So if it's always a little too dry,
[00:23:03.420]I should chop a little shorter.
[00:23:05.040]Or if it's too wet and I have to go a little longer,
[00:23:08.460]but then if it's shorter, I'll have some--
[00:23:10.860]I have to think about the packing.
[00:23:12.620]So I'll try to follow pretty much that list.
[00:23:15.660]I start like for what my starting point,
[00:23:18.180]because if I start and the material is too wet,
[00:23:21.840]or it's just past the ideal maturity,
[00:23:26.020]that I'm looking for, then you're
[00:23:28.060]at starting the whole process, all the following steps.
[00:23:32.780]You're not going to fix that first one.
[00:23:35.140]So I think, first of all, being part of the dry matter
[00:23:38.500]and the maturity.
[00:23:41.260]Then I think it makes life easier for the chop length.
[00:23:46.780]Kernel processing, you get the most out of the processing,
[00:23:49.540]especially when you're in that ideal sweet spot,
[00:23:52.360]the 35%, 36%, 37% dry matter.
[00:23:55.720]I would pay really good attention on the packing job
[00:24:00.780]and make sure that you get rid of air,
[00:24:02.380]because that would make the fermentation--
[00:24:06.040]get the best conditions for the fermentation.
[00:24:08.080]And even though you get some advantage,
[00:24:12.080]and sometimes, as I show some data,
[00:24:13.940]that the inoculant kind of helped and almost
[00:24:16.760]saved some situations, you're going
[00:24:18.880]to get more of the inoculant when you
[00:24:20.660]give the proper conditions.
[00:24:21.980]So if everything is right, you get the most out
[00:24:24.220]of the inoculant.
[00:24:25.420]And yes, I would always like use and advise
[00:24:29.800]to use an inoculant, because you never know what you're
[00:24:32.100]bringing from the field.
[00:24:34.420]So I would say, yeah, I would pay attention especially
[00:24:36.640]to the initial material and getting rid of air.
[00:24:41.440]And the other thing should be pretty much standard.
[00:24:43.540]Using inoculant is more for the front end or for the back end,
[00:24:46.720]depending on the challenge or the history.
[00:24:49.540]Cover for sure, cover seal, and just practice some
[00:24:55.120]good feed out management.
[00:24:57.320]I think dry matter drives almost all of your decisions.
[00:25:06.260]And actually knowing what the dry matter is
[00:25:10.300]would be fairly critical.
[00:25:11.680]But I think you can have the best laid out plan.
[00:25:15.080]If you don't meet that dry matter,
[00:25:17.620]then everything changes.
[00:25:19.480]I think if that's-- for me, it's the best starting point
[00:25:21.940]is to actually be able to have an expectation of what
[00:25:24.820]you want and try to utilize any tools that you can
[00:25:29.460]to be able to predict or actually calculate it
[00:25:31.640]as accurately as you can.
[00:25:33.500]So the question is that a lot of feedlots
[00:25:35.340]are not covering plastic on top.
[00:25:38.220]I can actually see why most of the feedlots
[00:25:41.560]don't do that in comparison to the dairies
[00:25:43.360]and mostly because of the labor intensive capacity of that.
[00:25:47.920]I think you have to factor in how much top layer
[00:25:50.260]loss you can live with and whatever
[00:25:54.520]top layer loss you can live with,
[00:25:55.920]then it's perfectly fine with me.
[00:25:57.360]That's your cover.
[00:25:59.320]Just don't feed it.
[00:26:00.480]So what's the dry matter loss percentage-wise?
[00:26:05.820]It's going to depend really big--
[00:26:08.160]I mean, where you are, what you came in with,
[00:26:11.120]and what kind of facility you have.
[00:26:13.280]I mean, again, for me, again, I said briefly,
[00:26:16.280]I prefer bunker silos because all your losses
[00:26:19.720]was that top part, and then you got pressure on the sides.
[00:26:22.360]If you have, you know, bunkered sideways,
[00:26:24.220]and all that stuff, so you minimize the amount of loss
[00:26:27.940]in that top layer.
[00:26:29.500]I've seen top layer losses of a couple of feet, right?
[00:26:33.980]So I mean, it really is depending
[00:26:35.800]on how much you're willing to give up.
[00:26:38.400]Is labor and plastic more expensive
[00:26:40.960]than the amount of material you're going to throw away?
[00:26:44.820]And again, I wish we throw away more than we do.
[00:26:50.360]That's my biggest problem.
[00:26:51.500]I mean, I think it's human nature because you're--
[00:26:53.920]feed it to the calves or something.
[00:26:55.220]But I think that there's--
[00:26:59.620]I mean, that's a pretty calculable line
[00:27:02.620]for individual operations, right?
[00:27:04.540]I mean, plastics cost me x.
[00:27:06.760]Labor, to put it, cost me x.
[00:27:08.080]Weight costs me x.
[00:27:10.100]The last three years, I've lost x amount of yield
[00:27:13.960]through top layer.
[00:27:15.820]One potential option there is to use propionic acid on the top.
[00:27:20.600]And then you would significantly reduce--
[00:27:22.760]I think one of the data points--
[00:27:23.620]one of the data points that I showed
[00:27:25.160]was about a 50% reduction in the top layer.
[00:27:31.080]Again, but the structure of the silage pit
[00:27:33.240]is really going to be critical in that one too.
[00:27:35.860]Yeah.
[00:27:36.360]I think just to expand a little on this topic.
[00:27:40.200]Some of the data that I showed, and especially
[00:27:43.300]is coming from Dr. Bolson, that it's well-known and respected.
[00:27:47.440]And you see like 80% loss on the top 10-inch layer
[00:27:50.640]versus less than 20.
[00:27:52.440]So that's-- you know, just like I
[00:27:53.320]started point, just going a little further,
[00:27:56.860]and something from Dr. Bolson also.
[00:27:59.640]You look at the crust of the spoilage layer,
[00:28:02.980]the top black layer, or that's about three times
[00:28:07.000]the thickness of the original material.
[00:28:09.620]So we also have a little calculator
[00:28:12.740]on all the service offering from our folks on the tech team.
[00:28:17.380]And we have these calculate on return on investment.
[00:28:21.280]And then we have the measure.
[00:28:23.020]We have the measure of the whole surface.
[00:28:25.320]And what's that layer of--
[00:28:29.600]just the layer.
[00:28:31.400]Careful with my words.
[00:28:33.760]And what that would represent of the original material.
[00:28:37.000]And then the cost of labor, plastic, tires.
[00:28:40.220]And we do kind of like an ROI.
[00:28:41.620]And it's always been running, I don't know, six, seven to one.
[00:28:46.420]Yeah, it's kind of like a no-brainer.
[00:28:50.260]But I think to have that kind of really
[00:28:52.720]easy data, especially from Dr. Bolson, to start this
[00:28:55.900]and try to convince the producer,
[00:28:59.840]I think is a good starting point.
[00:29:01.940]What I would add to your calculation
[00:29:03.740]is how much it costs you to remove that top layer,
[00:29:07.080]labor-wise, too.
[00:29:08.540]Henry, please.
[00:29:11.420]So if you convince yourself you didn't want to feed that,
[00:29:15.200]now you've added labor to actually remove that,
[00:29:18.940]theoretically speaking, right?
[00:29:20.620]So I think it's all that.
[00:29:22.420]But about getting to that exercise of, is it worth it?
[00:29:27.060]Yeah, I mean, in the dairy industry,
[00:29:28.560]we put plastic on everything.
[00:29:32.440]It pays.
[00:29:33.380]You can't see CO2 go off into the atmosphere,
[00:29:37.140]but you can see your pile lasting longer.
[00:29:40.160]So I mean, if you're a young professional
[00:29:42.240]and you want to demonstrate your worth--
[00:29:45.640]and Alan, you work in a different world.
[00:29:47.360]You're talking about big feed yards.
[00:29:48.900]But there's a lot of small producers
[00:29:50.600]that don't cover their piles.
[00:29:52.120]If you can convince them to cover their pile,
[00:29:54.120]you're going to look like a genius, right?
[00:29:55.960]Because they're going to be able to see
[00:29:57.340]that they had feed left this year that they
[00:29:59.180]didn't have last year.
[00:30:00.520]So to me, it's about how many tons did you put in
[00:30:03.560]and how many tons did you feed out?
[00:30:06.080]And being able to see that, maybe the calculation
[00:30:08.200]doesn't even help.
[00:30:08.920]But seeing it really makes a big difference.
[00:30:12.500]I'm trying to think of a number.
[00:30:14.020]But then sometimes we just think of the shrink losses.
[00:30:21.820]Just on a percentage base, I would
[00:30:24.280]expect about 4% on the front end,
[00:30:28.120]depending on the inoculant you're using, the back end.
[00:30:30.940]We could get another five or even more,
[00:30:33.400]depending on the situations.
[00:30:35.440]But then we always get a little stuck on these weight losses.
[00:30:41.800]And it goes way beyond that.
[00:30:46.660]Like on the data from the Florida study
[00:30:48.700]that I showed that, oh, yeah, you
[00:30:50.160]have a better recovery with the one
[00:30:51.520]that was treated, but then you lost a lot less
[00:30:54.520]of the nutrients.
[00:30:55.520]So not only, OK, I have less of the material,
[00:30:59.180]but I cannot just replace everything.
[00:31:01.080]I have even to buy more of those nutrients that I lost,
[00:31:05.040]the protein, the energy.
[00:31:08.320]Yeah, and then you have the issues on, I guess,
[00:31:13.300]the overall digestibility of the material,
[00:31:16.400]issues on the hygienic aspects.
[00:31:19.320]You're feeding all the potential,
[00:31:21.220]like the spoilage yeast, you should expect that
[00:31:24.460]on the deteriorated silage.
[00:31:27.000]And again, data from Dr. Bolson, from advisor Dr. Kung,
[00:31:32.140]you feed that spoiled silage.
[00:31:33.700]And even small amounts, you're starting
[00:31:37.540]dropping that fiber digestibility in the rumen,
[00:31:40.520]intakes, production.
[00:31:42.380]So when you think of sometimes just a quick ROI,
[00:31:46.980]we can come up with a number.
[00:31:48.560]Sometimes I think on average would be like a three,
[00:31:50.920]four, two, one, on the very least, just on that weight loss.
[00:31:55.980]But then it's a lot more than that.
[00:31:58.140]Yeah, that's what I say.
[00:32:04.800]When you start putting all the numbers together,
[00:32:07.580]it's a little more complex.
[00:32:11.060]Yeah, we calculate it in our operations
[00:32:13.220]simply based on post-removal deterioration time.
[00:32:18.780]So time it takes it to get to elevated
[00:32:20.920]temperatures.
[00:32:22.060]And again, what we worry in the dairy industry primarily
[00:32:25.360]is that you get oxidation of those fats in that material.
[00:32:29.680]And you're losing energy in that diet.
[00:32:31.260]But you're not only losing energy,
[00:32:32.600]you're producing free radicals that
[00:32:34.100]will affect intestinal or rumen of our populations.
[00:32:37.520]But just based on temperature, we get up to five or six
[00:32:41.200]to one return on investment.
[00:32:43.600]Part of it is because, unfortunately, in Arizona,
[00:32:46.680]we still have the bad habit of pulling material out
[00:32:50.720]once to feed twice a day.
[00:32:52.960]So you're getting most of the benefit
[00:32:54.500]on that secondary feeding of the afternoon,
[00:32:57.660]where that material's been sitting there for quite a while.
[00:33:01.480]But that's on inoculant that is a back end inoculant,
[00:33:05.140]one more of a stabilizing type of inoculant.
[00:33:09.880]The only time it doesn't pay is when
[00:33:11.520]you make a bad silage pit.
[00:33:14.420]I mean, again, I hate to say that,
[00:33:16.220]but it doesn't solve your problems.
[00:33:19.720]Kung did some--
[00:33:20.520]he did some research on that, right?
[00:33:23.020]If I remember correctly, I can't remember
[00:33:24.720]what year he did it in, though.
[00:33:26.560]But anyway, he did it on replacement heifers.
[00:33:29.620]And he was showing inclusion rates
[00:33:32.360]of different rates of poor quality forage silage
[00:33:37.360]and how drastically that affected dry matter intake.
[00:33:40.460]It's utterly amazing.
[00:33:42.460]And I think a lot of us see this
[00:33:44.360]in the beef industry all the time.
[00:33:45.620]You will see people just pull it down.
[00:33:48.560]It's not that bad.
[00:33:49.620]Put it in the truck.
[00:33:50.320]We're going to feed it.
[00:33:52.560]It goes on.
[00:33:53.720]Well, you know, if you ever read bunks on a consistent basis,
[00:33:59.220]you'll show up the next morning and you're wondering why,
[00:34:01.220]why do I get a feed call, right?
[00:34:03.280]And maybe it's only two or three pounds that day
[00:34:05.080]and it's another two or three pounds the next day
[00:34:06.680]and then you're behind the cattle and then you've got
[00:34:08.260]to go through that whole cycle.
[00:34:10.320]That's where I think this stuff shows up.
[00:34:12.920]It's not just instant like that,
[00:34:14.560]but it does show up in the feed bunk.
[00:34:16.620]And the dairy side, we have the added advantage or disadvantage
[00:34:20.120]of seeing a milk fat very quickly.
[00:34:22.820]So again, a lot of times when you have milk fat suppression,
[00:34:25.320]you go into that herd and you look at the forage quality
[00:34:27.820]and it's not great.
[00:34:29.460]You can actually put an antioxidant on that diet
[00:34:31.820]and get a bump fairly quickly because you're just feeding a
[00:34:34.520]bunch of free radicals into that rumen
[00:34:36.680]that are creating just rumen instability.
[00:34:39.360]So again, there you see it fairly quick.
[00:34:41.280]And that's -- I'm talking about, you know, 12 hours, 24 hours,
[00:34:44.120]you're going to see a drop in fat, butter fat, and that costs
[00:34:49.920]them -- I mean, depending on what market you are,
[00:34:52.680]but that can mean a lot of money.
[00:34:57.820]All right.
[00:34:58.960]I think with that, we're going to conclude the panel here.
[00:35:02.900]Appreciate it.
[00:35:05.140]Let's give our panel a round of applause.
[00:35:09.400]Thank you.

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