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Beef can benefit from baleage

A forage producer and broker says beef producers can benefit from using baleage instead of traditional dry hay, especially this year.

Kendall Guither from Walnut, Illinois is encouraging livestock producers including beef producers to give baleage a good, honest try. “In the storage process, they’re not going to have the storage loss like we know can happen with round bales that are outside, and in a year like this especially where it is literally impossible to get any dry hay done because our harvest window is so narrow, baleage is the only way we’ve been able to get anything done at all.”

Guither says many dairy cow and goat managers switched to baleage years ago, but the beef sector has been slow to accept it.  But, one of his customers switched and won’t go back to round bales. “He found that he gained quite a few pounds of net weight on the calves because they had more milk to drink from the beef cows, so more milk production, dairy or beef, and the calves drink the milk, they gained more.”

The cost of producing baleage versus dry hay is similar except for the cost of the wrapper and plastic.  Guither says custom wrappers in his area are charging about 10 dollars a bale, but many farmers are willing to pay to gain the feed quality and increased animal production.

Guither spoke with Brownfield at the Illinois Forage Expo near Winnebago, Illinois.