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The critters you mentioned do not live well on straight grain. They need a lot of fiber (plant stems) in their diet. You now feed a combination of grain & hay & alfalfa, all dried & seperated. Silage is the whole plant (corn, alfalfa, etc.) chopped up & stored away. The critter eats it, & gets a balance of fiber from the stalks, protiens from the green leafy stuff, & sugar & starch from the grain pieces. You probably need to add a little grain & mineral, but it's closer to a complete feed. Instead of harvesting just the grain, you harvest the whole plant. So you get way more feed per acre. However, you are taking all the nutrients off the ground, so it is harder on your land, and it costs more to harvest, haul, & store it all. While getting more nutrition per acre to your critters, you also are hauling & storing a lot more water too, which costs money. No free ride here. For storage, it needs to pack itself tight enough to eliminate all air. That is why it needs the moisture content. The silage will pickle itself in acid if it is put away wet enough & has no oxygen. Then the right kind of bacteria form the acid. If oxygen seeps in or is trapped in, then the wrong bactieria go to work, & you have worthless mush & mold. Is your silo sound, and does it have good plaster to limit air movement? Can you feed several inches of silage per day off of the silo? Because it's exposed to air, the surface will slowly spoil - you need to feed enough away every day to keep ahead of that. You end up working with expensive equipment, large volumes of stuff, and you need to manage it much more closely or it all goes rotten. If you have enough critters, you can get a better rate of return over the long haul due to slightly better use of resources. That's the simple basics. I've left a lot out, & might have over-simplified some details, but the basics are there. --->Paul
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