Kendall Guither, customer of Ag View FS, Inc. in Walnut, Ill., was recently named the winner in the Commercial Baleage category for the second year in a row at the World’s Forage Analysis Superbowl, held in Madison, Wis. in conjunction with the World Dairy Expo.
Baleage is a feed product similar to silage, but made with hay instead of corn. Guither bales while his hay is wet and wraps the bales in plastic to keep oxygen out and allow fermentation to occur. Fermentation makes the baleage easier for cattle to digest and causes them to eat more, which in turn boosts milk production.
“It’s like at Thanksgiving, when you smell all that good food cooking for lunch and you eat until you’re stuffed, then at suppertime you aren’t really hungry but you still eat more because it tastes so good,” Guither said. “Cows keep eating baleage not because they’re hungry, but because they’re not full, and the more they eat the more milk they produce.”
He relates a story from one of his customers who ran out of baleage and had to feed his cows regular hay. The customer noticed a 250-pound milk loss among his 15 cows over just a three-day period, and reported production went back up after bringing the baleage back to his feeding program.
Guither believes in cutting hay more aggressively than most, often making 5 or more cuttings a year. This year, he just completed his sixth cutting after the alfalfa went dormant for the winter. He has samples analyzed and notes the quality of the baleage tends to improve with each cutting.
“It’s not how many tons you can produce, it’s really about how much good the livestock can get out of what you produce,” he said. “The first thing I look for on my lab reports is the IVDMD (in vitro dry matter digestibility) percentage. This tells me what percent will be digested – the higher the number, the more benefit the cows are getting out of the baleage.”
Guither’s winning entry was grown with alfalfa seed variety WL 363 HQ. He was the only entrant from Illinois in the Commercial Baleage category, besting 14 other entries from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He works with Crop Specialist Malcolm Stambaugh, and both men received a cash prize for the first-place finish. Guither will also receive other prizes from the contest’s sponsors.
Baleage is a feed product similar to silage, but made with hay instead of corn. Guither bales while his hay is wet and wraps the bales in plastic to keep oxygen out and allow fermentation to occur. Fermentation makes the baleage easier for cattle to digest and causes them to eat more, which in turn boosts milk production.
“It’s like at Thanksgiving, when you smell all that good food cooking for lunch and you eat until you’re stuffed, then at suppertime you aren’t really hungry but you still eat more because it tastes so good,” Guither said. “Cows keep eating baleage not because they’re hungry, but because they’re not full, and the more they eat the more milk they produce.”
He relates a story from one of his customers who ran out of baleage and had to feed his cows regular hay. The customer noticed a 250-pound milk loss among his 15 cows over just a three-day period, and reported production went back up after bringing the baleage back to his feeding program.
Guither believes in cutting hay more aggressively than most, often making 5 or more cuttings a year. This year, he just completed his sixth cutting after the alfalfa went dormant for the winter. He has samples analyzed and notes the quality of the baleage tends to improve with each cutting.
“It’s not how many tons you can produce, it’s really about how much good the livestock can get out of what you produce,” he said. “The first thing I look for on my lab reports is the IVDMD (in vitro dry matter digestibility) percentage. This tells me what percent will be digested – the higher the number, the more benefit the cows are getting out of the baleage.”
Guither’s winning entry was grown with alfalfa seed variety WL 363 HQ. He was the only entrant from Illinois in the Commercial Baleage category, besting 14 other entries from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He works with Crop Specialist Malcolm Stambaugh, and both men received a cash prize for the first-place finish. Guither will also receive other prizes from the contest’s sponsors.
The World's Forage Analysis Superbowl provides growers from across the United States and Canada an opportunity to vie for forage awards by entering their high quality samples in a dairy or commercial division.
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