The essential part of any dairy farm is cattle feed. When made and fed right, the best cattle fodder gives many benefits. Corn silage is one such option for farmers. When you harvest and store it correctly, it contains lots of digestible fiber and plenty of starch from the grain, which has lots of energy, and the most fantastic part is that your cattle like it. However, it is short on calcium and protein. Protein is a vital nutrient your dairy cattle needs, especially lactating cows. If you have the same issue, you have come to the right post. Today, you will learn how to increase protein content in your quality silage.

Corn silage: simplifying the feeding process

One way to feed protein to your cattle is to provide it as a supplement when you give corn silage. However, that will make the feeding process more complicated than required. Another better way is to mix the protein supplements into the fodder as you store them. This process will give you ready-to-eat feed when it comes out of storage, thus simplifying the entire corn silage feeding procedure.

Tips to increase the protein content of silage

Here are a few valuable tips you can apply to successfully increase protein content in your silage product without affecting its quality.

Harvesting at the correct DM: DM or Dry Matter is the part of the feed that your cows, bulls, and buffaloes will consume; thus, before increasing your silage's protein content, you must harvest it at the correct DM.

? The crop should be mature enough to have maximized grain development. However, it shouldn't be too ripe; as such crops are too dry to ferment in the storage.
? Ideal DM is always between 30 and 40%.

Increasing the protein content in your silage

Protein is the first essential nutrient your cows, bulls, and buffaloes need to meet their energy requirements. However, untreated corn silage has between 7 and 8% protein content based on the DM, which is not enough for your cows.

? Remember that cattle's most concentrated protein sources are not true-protein feeds but non-protein nitrogen (NPN) such as anhydrous ammonia and urea.
? When you add them to silage, the bacteria in your cows' rumens can make protein. Plus, they get the benefits of other nutrients in the fodder.
? These NPNs binds with the moisture content in the silage. If adequate moisture is there, you will have a minimum protein loss.
? You may also add calcium and sulfur minerals to the silage as it goes into the storage.
Please note: Silage wetter than 30% DM will have lots of seepages, taking away some dissolved nitrogen, silage drier than 40% DM will be too dry. So any NPN won't be able to bind with it.

This concludes the blog on increasing protein content in silage to meet cattle requirements. Hope you got valuable information from it. Buy Silage Online from Silage Agro Private Limited, which in my opinion, is the best manufacturer and Silage Seller in India. Thank you for reading.