CHAPTER IX. 



HOW TO FEED SILAGE. 



Silage is eaten with a relish by all kinds of farm ani- 

 mals, dairy and beef cattle, horses, mules, sheep, goats, 

 swine, and even poultry. It should never be fed as sole 

 roughage to any one of these .classes of stock, however, 

 but always in connection with some dry roughage. The 

 nearer maturity the corn is when cut for the silo the more 

 silage may safely be fed at a time, but it is always well 

 to avoid feeding it excessively. 



The silo should always be emptied from the top in 

 horizontal layers, and the surface kept level, so as to 

 expose as little of the silage as possible to the air. It 

 should be fed out sufficiently rapidly to avoid spoiling 

 of the silage; in ordinary Northern winter weather a 

 layer a couple of inches deep should be fed off daily. 



Silage for Milch Cows. 



Silage is par excellence a cow feed, says Prof. Woll 

 in his Book on Silage. Since the introduction of the 

 silo in this country, the dairymen, more than any other 

 class of farmers, have been among the most enthusiastic 

 siloists, and up to the present time a larger number of 

 silos are found in dairy districts than in any other re- 

 gions where animal husbandry is a prominent industry. 

 As with other farm animals, cows fed silage should re- 

 ceive other roughage in the shape of corn stalks, hay, 

 etc. The quantities of silage fed should not exceed forty, 

 or at outside, fifty pounds per day per head. It is 

 possible that a maximum allowance of only 25 or 30 

 pounds per head daily is. to be preferred where the 

 keeping quality of the milk is an important considera- 

 tion, especially if the silage was made from somewhat 



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