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Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:24 pm
by squerble
Hi all,

There's one thing I've always wondered, and never been able to find a definitive answer for: what would drive someone to forage and clamp rather than mow and bale? Is it down to equipment preferences? Is it because they don't want to deal with bales?

I'm guessing the answers are going to be very personal! Perhaps a person would prefer to forage and clamp than mow and bale? What would drive someone to use a forager (like the upcoming Claas) with a grass pickup header to collect and clamp rather than run again with a baler? Why that vs. a loading wagon? Is it because the farm already has the forage harvester with the corn/maize header? Is it that a person has saw the clamp on their local farm so decided to do it that way?

Very interested to hear your answers!

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:42 pm
by Noraf
Usualy it would be for the volume of silage you need. If you don't need mutch in the way of silage, bales and wrap, medium would be wagons and clamp, while large would be a forrager.

Personally i do like the anderson dlc, and the hybrid

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:44 pm
by Illinois Farmer
It is done to stimulate real life. Chopping the hay with a forager is better fit the gut of cows vs just feeding hay to them. You would feed hay when they are starting out on feed to get them chewing more than switch to hayliage. The game can't stimulate cutting the hay into smaller pieces, but you can stimulate still in gameplay.

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:28 pm
by Kamoore65536
There is also more sugar produced when you put up silage than there is with hay. Especially when you use corn instead of grass. The fermentation of corn to silage produces sugars and protein as parts of the silage mix. Hay does as well but to a lesser degree than corn. Sudan grass also makes good silage.

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:34 am
by Dairydeere
Out where I live (Washington State, USA), baling is always at a dry moisture, and the baler takes in the whole crop to compress it. Forage harvesting (a.k.a. chopping) is where you take in the whole crop, but at a higher moisture and the harvester processes it and cuts it to be smaller pieces. Then it gets clamped to keep the air out for fermentation, which helps with digestion for the cows.

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:46 am
by Daytona
This is helpful, thanks :) so for me I guess no baling as I've just started playing and I'm on Marwell and intend for all of my 3 fields of grass to go for biogas and am wondering what equipment to use.
I have a clamp, sides and centre mowers, 2 tractors, 21l trailer, harvester but no other relevant equipment.

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2020 6:18 pm
by fenixguy
All personal preference. I'm speaking in game, not real life. It depends on what a person is wanting to model in their own game.

I never put up grass in a clamp. I enjoy baling too much. And I love mowing, it's probably my favorite in-game activity. Filling a bunker in single-player can get very tedious very quickly. I only do corn silage in a bunker.

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:33 am
by CowsGoMoo
fenixguy wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2020 6:18 pm All personal preference. I'm speaking in game, not real life. It depends on what a person is wanting to model in their own game.

I never put up grass in a clamp. I enjoy baling too much. And I love mowing, it's probably my favorite in-game activity. Filling a bunker in single-player can get very tedious very quickly. I only do corn silage in a bunker.
I've only done forage harvesting 3 or 4 times myself between 17 and 19, a few more helping out in mp. Never a big operation, never for the biogas, and once was simply to try out tool height control mod after this last update that fixed it and added more cutter heads. Oh yea and one time was to try out giants Kemper pack mod.

Otherwise I do the same as you. Mow, bale, wrap, feed what I need and sell the rest. Wash, rinse, repeat. A few times I've sold bales at bga just to try it and get a little cash, but generally if I work a field of mine its for myself and the farm. In 19 I did start doing more hay work just to sell for profit but then I stopped playing the game so it didn't get far.

Re: Mowing vs foraging

Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:31 am
by dan1109
Illinois Farmer wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:44 pm It is done to stimulate real life. Chopping the hay with a forager is better fit the gut of cows vs just feeding hay to them. You would feed hay when they are starting out on feed to get them chewing more than switch to hayliage. The game can't stimulate cutting the hay into smaller pieces, but you can stimulate still in gameplay.
Thanks for the info! I watch 10th Gen Dairyman, and I've always been mystified why he says the FH is "chopping" their hayliage. Its dried, its windrowed nice and neat, and I thought the head on the FH was a pickup head, not a chopper. But I guess it is indeed chopping (and picking up of course), as he says in the videos. But I guess if you run a FH with a pickup head in FS after mowing (Maize Plus Forage Edition will turn whole crop into raw Whole Crops Silage instead of straw, if you mow), then its the best simulation of that.

Its quite quick work for the FH they contract out - they mow, ted, and merge it all themselves, but that last fine chopping part, and the pickup is best done I guess with a FH due to that chopping requirement, which they don't have (same with Harvesting for grains for their cows, they don't have a harvester, but do the rest of the farming themselves, along with lower yield no-till planting)