Kenya Silage Making II

Submitted by: Winston Johnston

In 2006 I took part in a silage making exercise in Kenya where feed for dairy cattle was preserved in plastic silage bags similar to those used on Prince Edward Island. In this instance all labour was by hand and silage made from Napier Grass. During my recent trip to Kenya in February 2010, I was a witness to another method of making silage for milking cows, this time using a system similar to what we would call a bunker silo method. The silage making was still dependent on an all hand-labour system, and at completion, the farmer will have a source of silage to feed milk cows during the dry Kenyan summer.

Maize, corn to Islanders, was harvested by hand in the field and brought to a central point near the cattle barn. Here it was chopped by hand into small bits on a board using machetes and a four-person team. The silo site had already been prepared by digging a shallow trench about twenty feet long and perhaps twelve feet wide. This was lined with a black plastic sheet and after mixing the chopped maize with molasses diluted with water, the chopped maize was being packed by another team of four persons who were rolling a water filled oil drum back and forth over the chopped material (photo). By removing the air and densely packing the silage, the silo was slowing being filled with the chopped maize. A full days work was needed by some twelve to fifteen men and women working together in the field, harvesting the one acre of maize, bringing the cut stems to the work site, chopping, mixing with molasses, transporting and packing. After shoring up the structure with soil packed along the sides, the top of black plastic was placed on top and then covered with a layer of soil. In this manner, the silage would be secure and airtight until later in the summer when forages were scarce due to drought. In this coming September, the silo will be opened and the maize silage used to feed milk cows.