The intention is to hold off opening the pit until demand for silage increases so that you keep quality as good as you can. Also as silage feeding starts, it’s important to think of the problems associated with feeding bad-quality silage that you need to look out for.

If you open pits or silage bales, be careful of mould. Where mould is visible on the silage, take extra precautions for yourself and the animals you are feeding. There are spores present in the mould of the silage that can be harmful to the respiratory system and the eyes of both animals and humans.

In addition, toxins produced by the mould can inhibit animal performance and health. Farmers should wear a protective mask when in contact with mouldy silage and wash their hands after working with this type of silage.

Mould in silage can reduce animal performance, increase the risk of abortion in pregnant animals and can be associated with listeriosis. Therefore, it is important not to feed this silage to pregnant animals and high-performance animals. Where possible, forking out mouldy sections of silage will help to reduce the level of silage contamination.

Threat of listeriosis

Listeriosis a common disease that affects both sheep and cattle and comes about from the ingestion of listeria bacteria in the animal’s fodder. Listeria is a soil-borne bacterium, so if the silage harvester or baler picks up grass contaminated with soil it may result in poor fermentation of the silage as well as listeria presence.

The symptoms of listeriosis include dullness of the infected animal, head tilt and circling, as well as drooping of the ear and eyelid on one side of the face, together with drooling of saliva out of the same side of the mouth. At the early stages, animals with listeriosis may have a high temperature; however, animals in advanced cases or missed for a few days may not show a high temperature.

Early treatment with antibiotics, such as oxytetracycline or penicillin, will be effective in most cases but may have to be carried out over a long period as relapses are common. The animal should be housed and hydrated with electrolytes, to aid recovery and respond to antibiotic treatments. A practical way to control this disease is for farmers to limit and minimise the amount of potentially contaminated silage that younger animals are fed. This involves discarding any spoiled or mouldy silage. It mainly affects younger animals under three years of age that pick up the disease during the period of tooth emergence.