Chaff and Silage: The high volume solution.
It is difficult to find a more suitable and cost effective ingredient to mix with silage in a TMR blend than chaff. Dealing with feed shortages brought on by several dry seasons, Velon Herback of Palmer Charolais chose chaff to replace ground straw in his feed ration.
Using a Boomerang 30 chaff cart, he collected 500 loads from one of his Hew Holland CR series combines, resulting in a main heap 80 feet wide, 200 feet long, and around 20 feet high. The main crops where wheat, barley and peas. Lentil chaff that had a significant green kochia content went in a second smaller heap that was fed separately. The chaff was collected from the field using a tractor and grapple and hauled with an end discharge silage trailer. Collection was done after harvest during part days over a three week period. A tandem truck was also used if manpower was available. The main chaff heap was placed between two silage heaps, and pushed up to the height by putting two round bales in the grapple bucket of a Deere wheel loader.
Hauling chaff is a slower process than hauling bales, but eliminating baling, stacking and grinding are all factors that compensate. When weather permits, they add water to the ration as well, 3% by weight produces the best result. A horizontal style auger mixer is used.
Rotary combine chaff is particularly useful in that it contains a significant amount of small broken straw pieces. These longer particles slow feed passage through the animal, resulting in more gradual digestion, which is beneficial for animal performance and comfort.
As of mid-February, they have consumed around half of the main heap. Velon hopes he will have enough feed to enable him to keep his cattle away from the pasture for a couple of extra weeks in the spring.
Features
Upper Conveyor
Chaff Cart
Heavy Duty Construction
Front Conveyor
Combine Draw Bars
Cylinders With Hydraulic Lock Valves
Front Conveyor Folds For Easy Hitching And Clearance When Transporting
New Cart
Hitch Components
Cliff Arnal
Cliff Arnal is a grain farmer and cattle producer who has been using chaff as a feedstock continually since the 1970s. He currently calves around 400 cows, relying upon chaff as his major feed source.
Feeding Program
Cliff calves in late April and May. The cows are wintered at a single location, which includes a valley bottom section with a spring fed creek. The chaff is unloaded into a single bunk, about 100 feet wide by 250 feet long. The chaff bunk is in the sheltered valley section of the pasture. The ends of the bunk are fenced, an electric wire controls access down each side of the bunk. The cows receive hay every day. Hay is put out with a processor that holds two bales, about 300 yards from the location of the chaff bunk. When I visited in December, they were feeding two 1000 lb square bales of hay a day. They will add grain or hay as the weather dictates, and as the cows nutritional requirements change.
The chaff comes from cereals, peas and canola.
Cliff has also fed ammoniated chaff. Perforated hoses were laid the length of the bunk as it was being formed. NH3 tanks were connected to manifolds with 2 hoses each. The bunk was hosed down with water, then when the wind was from a suitable direction, the valves on the NH3 tanks were opened and it was left for 24 hours. The result was nutritious feed, with no germination of any surviving seeds. The hoses were rolled up as they became exposed during the winter. It was not necessary to cover the chaff to get a good result.
There are no longer any NH3 suppliers nearby, so they have not ammoniated for a number of years.
Chaff collection Program
The chaff is hauled during harvest, a cart of his own design unloads into tandem trucks with extended boxes. The cart capacity matches the grain tank capacity of the combine.
The chaff is hauled to the winter feed location and dumped. It is then pushed up into a heap about 8 feet high.
Currently they harvest more chaff than their herd consumes, they sell the excess to neighbours, delivering it for half the price of hay.
Cliff Arnal, Ravenscrag, SK.