Tedders are the secret

Luckily, Country News came to his farm on a good day and the truth was let out of the bag.

“The tedder is the secret to making good quality silage and hay from grass. I cannot stress that enough,” Mr Dempster said.

“We mow, then we ted. The tedder is the best-kept secret.”

In order to understand what the tedder is doing, we have to imagine we're feeding vampires, not cows.

The mower gives the grass injuries, perhaps skinning its knees or knuckles. The tedder then comes along right when the grass is healing and rips all the scabs off and opens the wounds deeper.

Stopping the grass from ‘healing’ increases the quality of your silage.

Another important step in Mr Dempster's recipe for ‘rocket fuel’ silage is baling ASAP.

“On day one we cut 9 am to 12,” he said.

“We ted that afternoon, next morning we ted as soon as the dew is off.

“The other thing about tedding is it lifts it off the ground, so you get the air underneath it and it dries quicker. If we get rain, it's got to be 20 mm or more to affect us.

“Everyone gets there at 11 o'clock and goes ‘you'll never bale this today’ then about 12.30 they go ‘well, this is starting to dry, better get the rake'.”

The mowing man then jumps in the rake and the tedder man in the baler, and the rest is history.

“One mower pass, two tedder passes, one rake pass and a baler pass. Mind you, this all happens within 30 hours of the mow and that's how you get medium-rare steak.”

Left to dwell on its misfortune any longer, the grass would have lost the taste and juice which makes silage so valuable.

“I tried telling people in the drought up Queensland two years ago,” Mr Dempster said.

“They were buying in all this hay and straw and I said ‘but your cows have no feed, nothing to eat with it; you're feeding them a packet-full of dry bickies every day — they are all constipated'.

“So we ended up making silage out of lesser grade food like rice, straw and sorghum stubble and it changed the drought cattle's gut big time. Their gut started moving more, so they did better.”

Mr Dempster describes silage as the ‘soup’ or ‘dip’ whereas hay is the ‘biscuit’ or ‘bread'.

“Mind you it's all grass, but it is nice to have your bickies with dip.

“And you don't want to feed silage on its own when the cows are in a lush, green winter pasture because it's like drinking water with your soup. You want bread with your soup, so we spread hay before putting the silage in.

“That's also why you want to feed silage, not hay, in summer when the pasture is dry and the cows are hot.”

Another difference which sets the Dempster silage method apart is the lack of any netting.

Not only does this make for a cleaner, safer process come feed-out time, Mr Dempster says, but it also allows him to pack more into each bale.

“I don't use netting, instead I use extra plastic to hold it all together.

“The advantage is the plastic remembers how it used to be rolled and will shrink in on itself after baling, giving a very tight bale.

“I'm putting seven layers of plastic on and it's really compressing down. No air in there, no mould.

“These bales are solid, they are the king of bales.”

Mr Dempster uses fixed-chamber balers modified to wrap with film, not netting.

“My baler — there is only three of them in Australia. Soon to be a fourth.”

Another piece of advice Mr Dempster wanted to stress was the use of plastics.

“When you find a good woman, stick with it. When you find a good plastic, stick with it.

“Stay with the reputable guys, because the ones who come in and do it on price and whatever — they might save you one dollar, but that one dollar isn't worth it when it turns around and bites you on the bum.”

WORDS OF ADVICE:

Ashley Dempster says farmers should be getting their plastic orders in soon, as the worldwide shortage of resin and shipping difficulties will take a toll on availability come baling time.

"Dairy farmers will already know their gloves have doubled in price, it will be just the same,” he said.

"I don't want to alarm anybody, but start sorting it out quick."