Silage has been a staple feed on farms for generations, but it requires some specialized and expensive harvesting, storage, and feeding infrastructure. For the haymaker, it’s always difficult to see the neighbor’s hay crop safely tucked away in a silo while their hay, which was cut the same day, is getting washed in the windrow. In the past 15 years or so, many of these disgruntled haymakers have moved their production system to baleage without having to make a huge capital i

Hay exports in 2025 totaled 2.7 million metric tons (MT), according to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). This was down 17% year-over-year, following a relatively flat trend the previous year. Trade disputes and steep exchange rates with our nation’s largest hay export markets had a significant impact on the reduced annual total. China and Japan — the biggest consumers of U.S. alfalfa and grass hay, respectively — imported substantially less product in 2025. In fact,

Knowing the forces that shape feed efficiency is only half the story; the next step is using them to your advantage. As a part of a series discussing feed efficiency for dairy farms, this article explores strategies related to feeding and management that farms can use to influence it. In this article, Feed Efficiency specifically refers to energy-corrected milk divided by dry matter intake (ECM/DMI), an on-farm metric to evaluate cows’ conversion of feed into milk. Feeding St