Haylage Bailage

Ok, so it’s hard to be interesting and engaging about partly fermented grass…but here goes. Winter at the Deer Centre has a very distinct smell to it. The sickly-sweet aroma of our winter feed will always remind me of crisp, cold mornings spent driving through fields distributing bundles of haylage to the deer.

What on Earth is haylage, I hear you ask? Well, good question!

Many of our deer species rely on grass to get most of their calories, but when winter comes the grass stops growing and what is there gets covered by snow or ice and it’s hard for the deer to get the food they need. To help them through this, we grow a crop of highly nutritious grasses which we then store for the winter. This is called haylage. Haylage is created by cutting the grass and bailing it while it is still slightly wet. The bails are wrapped in an airtight plastic wrap. The combination of moisture and lack of air leads to fermentation. This process is surprisingly effective as haylage keeps around 90% of the nutritional value of fresh grass; even if it does end up a little smelly as a result!

Winter feeds are always good fun at the SDC and we have some good videos to show you guys. Hope you enjoy!