The Feeding Value of Grass Silage in the Ration for Dairy Cows

The ensiling of legumes and grasses has been practiced to a limited extent for years, although the practice has not been generally accepted because of recurrent failures.Recent investigations have shown possible methods of preventing these failures.The ensiling of legumes and grasses by these methods has been spurred on during recent years by extension workers, interested in the production of better quality roughage, and by commercial companies, interested in the sale of preservatives or equipment used in the process of ensiling.The terminology with reference to ensiled crops is not uniform.Throughout this report the terminology of Bender and Savage (2) will be used.They used the term "grass silage" as an all-inclusive term referring to any "silage made from an uncured hay crop--whether it be a true grass such as timothy, a legume such as alfalfa, or a green cereal such as oats.Terms like 'alfalfa-molasses silage' or 'timothy-phosphoric acid silage' describe specific kind.s of grass silage."Among the feeding experiments with grass silage, Watson and Ferguson (15) have made extensive reports.They fed respective groups of dairy cows A.I.V. silage, molasses silage, and artificially dried grass.A statistical analysis of the milk production, butterfat production, and live weight changes showed no significant difference when equal amounts of starch equivalent and digestible crude protein were furnished in each ration.A comparison of alfalfa silages prepared by the A.I.V. and molasses methods was made by Bohstedt et al. (3) in which feeding trials were carried out for three years on milking animals.During the three years the milk and butterfat production records were maintained almost equally well, although the molasses silage had a slight advantage.Each animal received 1 oz. of CaCO~-Na2CO~ mixture (10 : 3) per 15 pounds of silage.Bender et al. (1) have shown that molasses grass silage will replace corn