Why throw away $41,000 worth of milk?
Hidden silage losses can be a significant cost to farm businesses. In every stack, valuable nutrients disappear during fermentation and feed-out; often without being noticed. The top metre of a silage stack sealed with conventional black-and-white plastic can lose up to 20% of its original silage due to oxygen exposure and heating. These losses don’t always show up as spoilage — they vanish as heat and gas, which can make them hard to see, but they are still very costly. For a 12m x 50m stack it could mean over 28 tonnes of dry matter gone, and that could have made you $41,870 worth of milk¹.
But the impact isn’t just quantity. Spoilage organisms break down the most nutritious parts of the feed—starches, sugars, and proteins—leaving behind silage that’s less palatable, lower in energy, and at higher risk of harmful mycotoxins. These toxins can compromise animal health and production.
Reducing oxygen exposure is the key to protecting silage. Traditional plastics allow significant air ingress, even when weighted down with tyres. Air means continued surface spoilage and hidden losses.
Silostop® Orange oxygen barrier film is different. With an oxygen transmission rate of less than 5 cm³/m²/24hrs, it outperforms conventional plastic (which exceeds 300 cm³/m²/24hrs)². To put that in perspective, one layer of Silostop® Orange is equivalent to stacking 60 black-and-white covers on top of each other in terms of oxygen ingress protection.
While thin (just 45µm), it is incredibly powerful. Made with a 7-layer co-extrusion of polyethylene and ethylene vinyl alcohol it creates one of the most effective oxygen barriers available. The result? Losses in the top cubic metre of silage drop from 19.5% to just 11.4%, saving feed and money³.
The plastic and savings are also significant:
- Silostop® Orange Film: Applied fresh each season it is 1/3 of the plastic weight of conventional black and white and is recyclable through the Plasback® scheme.
- Silostop® SupaCova UV Cover: A durable woven cover that is designed to protect your stack. These are a neat and tidy solution that lasts 7+ years with proper care.
- Silostop® Gravel Bags: A cleaner, easier alternative to tyres for sealing edges—better for the environment and simpler to handle.
Together, these innovations reduce farm waste and increase your herd’s milk production from silage. For more information, contact your local Nutritech Area Manager.
1In the 12x50m example $41,870 worth of milk assumes maize silage packed at a density of 240kgDM/m3 , is 10.5MJME and it takes 65MJME to make a kgMS and $9.00 milk price.
2IMichigan State University, Test D3985 – 21% oxygen
3 Based on meta analysis of 41 trials by Wilkinson and Fenlon, 2013