Short answer: silage for buffaloes and cows is green fodder that you chop, pack tightly and seal from air, so it ferments and stays good for months. Make it from a surplus crop, and open it when the fields run short.
Vital Feeds (Private) Limited, an animal feed manufacturer in Arifwala, Punjab, wrote this beginner's guide for dairy farmers who have never made silage. It carries no feed prices. Every fact comes from FAO papers named below, and the feed per animal sum is our own arithmetic from them.
What is silage, and what does silage mean in Urdu?
Silage is fodder kept wet and airless. Natural lactic acid bacteria on the plant turn its sugars into acid, the acidity rises, and the spoilage organisms stop working. The FAO paper on silage fermentation says the acid lowers the pH of the fodder to between 3.8 and 5.0. In Urdu the word is normally explained, not translated: it means green fodder preserved by fermentation without air. Hay is different, because hay is dried and silage is not.
Why make silage in Pakistan?
Because green fodder runs short twice a year. Syed Hassan Raza of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, writes in an FAO conference poster on silage in Pakistan that the livestock industry faces two periods of severe fodder scarcity: May to June and October to November. We are in the second one now. Silage made from a surplus crop in the good months fills those gaps, and our buffalo winter feeding plan shows where it fits between berseem cuttings.
When should you cut maize or sorghum for silage?
Cut when the whole crop holds at least 30 percent dry matter. FAO's paper on tropical cereal silage says that below this level the fermentation goes wrong and liquid drains out. It names the stage between milk and dough of the grain as the right time, and gives 30 to 35 percent dry matter for whole crop maize at that stage. At late dough or later, more of the grain passes through the animal undigested. In a hot climate the crop moves through these stages quickly, so check the field every day once the cobs fill.
How do you chop, pack and seal silage step by step?
FAO's paper on harvesting and ensiling techniques lists the rules that matter most. Follow them in this order:
- Keep soil out. The paper says the forage must not be contaminated with soil.
- Chop to 2 cm or shorter. Short pieces pack tight and hold less air.
- Push the air out. Compact the fodder as you fill. In a small silo of 2 tonnes or less, FAO says a person walking on it can do this.
- Fill and seal fast. FAO's golden rule is to finish in one day, three days at most.
- Make it airtight. Cover the whole surface and weigh the sheet down. Air under the cover is what spoils silage.
Whatever silo you use, the rule is the same: oxygen kept out, fodder packed in, job done quickly.
How much silage does one buffalo or cow need?
FAO gives a worked example for an adult bovine. If silage is half of a 10 kg dry matter ration, the animal eats 5 kg of silage dry matter a day. Over a 180 day feeding period that is 900 kg, which FAO puts at 3.6 tonnes of fresh forage at 25 percent dry matter, or about 4.1 tonnes once you allow 15 percent loss. Our own arithmetic from the same figures: 5 kg of dry matter is about 20 kg of fresh silage a day, so plan the crop area and the silo size before you cut. Use our daily buffalo feed guide to set the rest of the ration.
Is there an easy way to make silage for one or two animals?
Yes, bag silage. In northern Pakistan, consultant Ian Lane developed "little bag silage" for families that keep a single dairy cow or buffalo. Strong plastic bags took 5 kg of chopped sorghum each, were squeezed to expel air, twisted, tied, and wrapped in two more bags. After a minimum of one month, a buffalo was fed one bag a day. In a Nepal trial, buffaloes fed one bag a day of green paddy straw silage, on top of straw and bran, rose from 2 to 3 litres of milk a day. That is one trial's result, not a promise for your herd.
Lane also reports a warning: mice chewed through bags of maize silage and spoiled most of them. Keep bags in a room protected against rats and mice.
Why did silage fail for many Pakistani farmers?
The Faisalabad survey asked 150 farmers. Small land and small herds were the biggest limits: most families owned 3 to 5 acres and one or two animals, and farmers named cost and labour as constraints. Knowledge was also uneven. Of the farmers near government institutes, about 90 percent knew about silage, against 10 percent of those further away. That is useful honesty for a beginner. If you have two buffaloes, a few bags may be enough. If you have a larger herd, a covered pit or trench makes more sense, because the work is spread over more animals.
How do you check silage and feed it safely?
- Look and smell: these are our practical checks, not FAO figures. Silage that is slimy, hot or mouldy should be thrown away, not fed.
- Open small: FAO advises keeping the exposed face as small as possible and finishing the silo as quickly as you can once it is opened.
- Introduce slowly: start with a small amount mixed with the usual fodder.
- Keep the concentrate: silage does not replace it. Balance it with dairy vanda for the animal's milk yield, and see our guide to raising buffalo milk yield.
If an animal is off feed or her milk drops after silage is introduced, call your vet. Do not keep feeding silage you are unsure about.
See the full cattle and dairy feed range to plan the concentrate that goes with your silage.
Written by the Vital Feeds editorial team.
How this guide was made: the silage definition, pH range and fermentation are from the FAO paper on silage fermentation processes; dry matter and harvest stage from the FAO paper on silage from tropical cereals; chopping, sealing and the feeding example from the FAO paper on harvesting and ensiling techniques; the Pakistan scarcity periods and farmer survey from Raza (University of Agriculture, Faisalabad); the bag method from Lane. All are in FAO Plant Production and Protection Paper 161, Silage Making in the Tropics (2000), read on 13 November 2026. The 20 kg a day figure is our own arithmetic.
Want help choosing a concentrate to feed with silage? Message the mill on WhatsApp (UAN 0311 1555136), or find your nearest Vital Feeds dealer.