Balage - Nutrition

Nutrition

Ensilage creates a nutritious food for livestock, retaining a much larger proportion of nutrients compared to dried crop stored as hay or stover.. It can be substituted for root crops. It is easily digestible and milk produced by animals eating silage maintains its quality and taste.

Bulk silage is commonly fed to dairy cattle, while baled silage tends to be used for beef cattle, sheep and horses.

Since silage goes through a fermentation process, energy is used by fermentative bacteria to produce volatile fatty acids (VFAs), such as acetic, propionic, lactic, and butyric, which preserve the forage. The result is that the silage is lower in energy than the original forage, since the fermentative bacteria use some of the carbohydrates to produce VFAs. Thus, the ensiling process preserves forages, but does not improve the quality or the nutrient value. Although it does not increase the level of the plant matter ensiled, it does increase the digestibility and utilization of nutrient by ruminants. Larger number of livestock can be supported on a given area by the use of silage than is possible by the use of green crops.