Haylage is an opportunity to feed animals with high-quality food at any time of the year and regardless of the weather.
Its use exceeds the benefits of conventional hay, which means it makes sense to think about its harvesting.
What is it?
To have a general idea of this feed, you need to know what it is. Haylage is a special pet food that is made from herbs brought to about 50% moisture. Haylage is preserved due to anaerobic storage conditions and physiological dryness of the mass. When the feed reaches 45-50% moisture, various microorganisms stop developing in it. For mold, this moisture is acceptable, but it does not survive anaerobic conditions.
Did you know? Zoologists have noticed that eleven different melodies are present in the mooing of cows.This food has a large presence of sugar with a minimum amount of organic acids due to the low activity of lactic acid bacteria. Depending on which herb is used, the acidity of the feed ranges from 4.5 to 5.5.
The nutritional value of haylage is quite high (about 0.40 feed units and from 30 to 70 grams of protein that is digested in 1 kilogram).
How to cook haylage?
To prepare high-quality food, you need to know which herbs to choose for this, as well as familiarize yourself with the technology of haylage harvesting.
Best herbs
Experts recommend using herbs such as alfalfa, clover, as well as a variety of grass-bean mixtures. This is due to the fact that they are not intended for silage and of them are not recommended to make hay.
Important! If you violate the timing of the beginning of the collection of herbs, the quality of feed may decrease (especially for cereal grasses).
Stocking
To make the food quality, you need to mow the legume grass, while it is budding, and cereal - when the tube is coming out.
You will also be interested to learn about the proper preparation of silage.For mowing, you can use any methods of grass cleaning. Some special requirements are not applied to the harvesting machinery, however, the beating herbs must necessarily be flattened on warm summer days and turning the masses in rolls.
The above actions are needed to accelerate wilting grass and preserve its beneficial properties.Recently, harvesting of haylage in rolls has become quite popular. Thanks to this method, the feed is of high quality with the preservation of a large number of useful elements. Weather also in no way interferes with the preparation of food in this way.
So, mowed grass is recommended to agitate twice a day. This is done with the help of special rake-tedders. As soon as the mass reaches a humidity of 50%, it is raked into rolls for the purpose of subsequent pressing. It is important that the rolls were of the same density and not more than 1.4 meters wide. 
Rolls need to be formed no later than two days after mowing. They are pressed into rolls with the help of special balers equipped with a grinding device. The mass of the finished roll is about 700-800 kg.
To prepare haylage at home, it is necessary to mow the grass in the above manner. After the future feed has been mowed, it should be left to lie in the swaths for a while, and then be harvested. So the plants should lie down until their humidity reaches 50%. After that, the grass must be collected, chopped and put in storage.
Animal feed - agricultural technology of cultivation of sorghum, sunflower cake, corn silage.
Storage rules
Grass, pressed in rolls, must be immediately put in a vertical position, because grass fermentation occurs rather quickly. To store the rolls, use a special loader with the capture of the roll. 
It is necessary to ensure that the film is not damaged. Store rolls preferably under a canopy. Allowed to lay the rolls in two rows on each other, if space is not enough.
Important! It is recommended to regularly inspect the rolls for damaged film and in case of damage, remove them with adhesive tape.You can feed animals with such haylage after two months, but you should not keep it for more than 1-1.5 years.
For storage of home-made haylage, it is necessary to use storages into which air enters. Thus, they make a storage space similar to a tower (aluminum, brick, steel, concrete or plastic can be used as materials). 
When loading feed into the tower, remember that it is necessary to load more than five meters of haylage a day. Full load should be no longer than four days.
Notch
It is important to properly remove the grass in order to prevent deterioration. So, it is recommended to remove the haylage from the towers using a special unloader with one or two augers.
Did you know? The sense of smell in cows is rather weakly developed, but before eating grass, the animal sniffs it. If a cow smells of fertilizers that have recently been added, she refuses to eat.It is important to understand that while the storage is closed, the feed is along with carbon dioxide, but as soon as the storage is opened, oxygen enters the haylage, which is a favorable environment for the development of bacteria.
In such an environment, food quickly loses its useful properties. Therefore it is necessary to try to spend the feed as quickly as possible.The haylage must be fed to animals for one day, because later it loses its beneficial properties. Also, be sure to take small portions of haylage every day, because otherwise it will begin to deteriorate in a few days after the cut.
Senazh: GOST requirements
Properly made haylage should be green or yellow, with a pleasant fruit smell, dry and free-flowing in consistency. Feed moisture should range from 45 to 55%, and pH - 4.5-5.5. 
If the food was improperly harvested, it acquires a light brown shade and an unpleasant odor. Leaves dirty spots on hands.
Haylage of the first class should not contain butyric acid, and in the hardening of the second and third classes it can be from 0.1 to 0.2% of this substance.
By preparing grass for animals, you can get high-quality and healthy food. This feed will be available at any time of the year and is not dependent on weather conditions. The main thing is to know what is haylage, and master the technology of its preparation.
