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Sorghum grown as forage crop.. Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. [1] Historically, the term forage has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used more loosely to include similar plants cut for fodder and carried to the animals, especially as hay or silage.
For pasture-type crops, the grass is mown and allowed to wilt for a day or so until the moisture content drops to a suitable level. Ideally the crop is mowed when in full flower, and deposited in the silo on the day of its cutting. [4] After harvesting, crops are shredded to pieces about 15 mm (1 ⁄ 2 in) long. The material is spread in ...
The use of agricultural land to grow feed rather than human food can be controversial (see food vs. feed); some types of feed, such as corn , can also serve as human food; those that cannot, such as grassland grass, may be grown on land that can be used for crops consumed by humans. In many cases the production of grass for cattle fodder is a ...
Sheep will eat between two and four percent of their body weight per day in dry feed, such as hay, [9] and are very efficient at obtaining the most nutrition possible from three to five pounds per day of hay or other forage. [10] They require three to four hours per day to eat enough hay to meet their nutritional requirements. [11]
A baler or hay baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop (such as hay, cotton, flax straw, salt marsh hay, or silage) into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport, and store. Often, bales are configured to dry and preserve some intrinsic (e.g. the nutritional) value of the plants bundled.
Alfalfa is widely grown throughout the world as forage for cattle, and is most often harvested as hay, but can also be made into silage, grazed, or fed as greenchop. [23] Alfalfa usually has the highest feeding value of all common hay crops. It is used less frequently as pasture. [11]
A forage harvester – also known as a silage harvester, forager or chopper – is a farm implement that harvests forage plants to make silage. [1] Silage is grass , corn or hay , which has been chopped into small pieces, and compacted together in a storage silo , silage bunker, or in silage bags. [ 2 ]
The toothed augers rotate in a circle around the center hub, evenly chewing the silage off the surface of the pile. In the center, a large blower assembly picks up the silage and blows it out the silo door, where the silage falls by gravity down the unloader tube to the bottom of the silo, typically into an automated conveyor system.