6 Best Silage Tarps for Feed Preservation

You spend weeks cutting, wilting, and baling your forage, finally getting it all stacked just before the rain hits. You throw a cheap blue tarp over the pile, weigh it down with some old tires, and call it a day. Six months later, you peel back that shredded tarp to find a thick, black, moldy crust on top of your precious feed—a gut-wrenching waste of time and money. This happens far too often, and it’s almost always preventable. The single most important factor in preserving your silage is the plastic you put over it.

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Why Oxygen Barrier Film is Key for Small Bales

An oxygen barrier film isn’t just a sheet of plastic. It’s a sophisticated, multi-layer material engineered to be virtually impermeable to oxygen, which is the primary enemy of good silage. Standard tarps, even thick ones, are surprisingly porous on a microscopic level, allowing a slow but steady stream of oxygen to reach your feed, fueling spoilage, mold growth, and nutrient loss.

For a hobby farmer, this is especially critical. Our silage piles and bale stacks are often smaller, which means they have a much higher surface-area-to-volume ratio compared to a massive commercial bunker. This exposes a greater percentage of your feed to potential oxygen contamination from the top and sides.

Using a dedicated oxygen barrier film directly against the forage creates an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment almost immediately. This allows the beneficial bacteria to get to work fermenting the sugars into lactic acid, which pickles and preserves the feed. Without that seal, you’re just inviting yeast and mold to the party, turning your high-quality forage into low-quality compost.

SiloStop Orange: Ultimate Oxygen Barrier Film

When you see that distinctive thin orange film on a silage pile, you’re looking at one of the best oxygen barriers on the market. SiloStop is specifically designed to be the first layer that touches your feed. It’s incredibly thin and flexible, allowing it to "cling" to the surface of the silage pile, eliminating air pockets where spoilage can begin.

Think of it as vacuum-sealing your forage pile. Because it conforms so tightly, it creates a near-perfect seal that dramatically reduces dry matter loss in the top few feet of the pile. For a small operation, protecting that top layer is crucial, as it represents a significant portion of your total feed.

The key thing to remember is that SiloStop is an underlay film, not a standalone cover. Its thinness makes it vulnerable to punctures and UV damage. It must be protected by a thicker, standard black/white silage cover or a woven secure cover on top. It’s the first, most important step in a two-part system for maximum feed preservation.

Bunker Blocker Secure Cover for Pile Durability

While an oxygen barrier film stops air, a secure cover protects the barrier film itself. Bunker Blocker is a heavy-duty, woven polypropylene cover that acts as armor for your silage pile. It’s designed to be laid directly over your primary black/white plastic or oxygen barrier film.

Its main job is to defend against physical threats. It prevents birds from pecking holes in the plastic, stops rodents from chewing through, and protects the underlying film from UV degradation, hail, and wind. A small hole in your primary plastic can compromise a huge section of your pile, and this cover is your best insurance against that.

These covers are a long-term investment. They are highly tear-resistant and can last for many seasons if handled with care, making the upfront cost much more reasonable over time. For a hobby farm, where a pile might be in a higher-traffic area or exposed to the elements, adding a secure cover provides peace of mind and ultimately saves feed.

Raven VaporBlock: High-Strength Cross-Laminate

Raven’s VaporBlock line brings a different kind of toughness to the table. Instead of a single sheet of polyethylene, these tarps are made from cross-laminated layers. This construction gives them exceptional resistance to punctures and tears. If you’ve ever snagged a standard tarp on a sharp stalk or a corner of a pallet, you know how easily they can rip.

This strength is invaluable when you’re covering an uneven pile or working alone. You can pull and stretch a cross-laminated tarp with much more confidence. It’s an excellent choice for the main black/white outer cover, especially if you’re storing rougher forages like cornstalks or sorghum.

While it has excellent vapor barrier properties, for the absolute best results, it’s still wise to use it over a dedicated, thin oxygen barrier film. The VaporBlock provides the brute strength and UV protection, while the underlay film provides the ultimate oxygen seal. It’s a powerful combination for ensuring your feed stays fresh from top to bottom.

Sunfilm Gold Silage Film for High UV Resistance

If your silage pile sits in the blazing sun all day, UV degradation is your biggest enemy. Standard plastics become brittle and can crack or disintegrate after months of intense sun exposure, creating countless small holes that let in oxygen. Sunfilm Gold is engineered specifically to combat this problem.

This film uses a multi-layer, co-extruded manufacturing process that includes a high concentration of UV inhibitors. This means it maintains its strength and flexibility far longer in high-sun environments compared to standard films. It’s a premium choice for farms in southern latitudes or for any pile that won’t have the benefit of afternoon shade.

Investing in a high-UV-resistance film isn’t an extravagance; it’s a practical necessity based on your environment. Paying a little more for a tarp that you know will survive the entire storage season without failing is one of the smartest decisions you can make. The alternative is discovering your cover has failed in the middle of winter, when it’s too late to do anything about it.

RKW Polydress O2 Barrier 2IN1 Combination Film

For the time-strapped hobby farmer, a 2-in-1 combination film can be a game-changer. The RKW Polydress O2 Barrier combines a highly effective oxygen barrier film and a durable outer protective layer into a single, easy-to-deploy sheet. This eliminates the need to roll out two separate films, cutting your covering time in half.

The convenience factor cannot be overstated. When you’re trying to beat an incoming storm or just finish up after a long day, being able to cover the pile in a single pass is a massive advantage. It reduces the chance of wind catching and tangling two separate sheets and makes the job manageable for one person.

The main tradeoff is that a combination film may not cling quite as tightly to the forage surface as a separate, ultra-thin underlay film. However, the oxygen barrier technology is still excellent, and the reduction in labor is a significant benefit. For many small-scale farms, this is the perfect balance of premium performance and real-world practicality.

Filmtech Silage Sheeting: A Reliable Standard

Sometimes, you just need a solid, reliable workhorse. Filmtech produces the classic black/white silage sheeting that has been the industry standard for decades. It’s a no-frills, 5 or 6 mil co-extruded film that gets the job done effectively and affordably. The white outer layer reflects sunlight to prevent overheating, while the black inner layer blocks light.

This type of sheeting is a huge upgrade from a generic hardware store tarp. It’s designed for agricultural use, with better puncture resistance and UV stability. While it doesn’t offer the near-zero oxygen permeability of a true barrier film, it provides a very good seal that is perfectly adequate for many situations.

If you’re on a tighter budget or storing less sensitive forage for a shorter period, a standard black/white film is a sound choice. To boost its performance, you can simply pair it with a thin underlay film like SiloStop. This gives you a top-tier system without having to buy the most expensive primary cover.

Choosing Tarp Thickness and Size for Your Farm

Navigating tarp specifications is simple once you know what to look for. Thickness is measured in "mils," where one mil is a thousandth of an inch. The right thickness depends on the tarp’s job.

• Oxygen Barrier Underlay: Look for 1.5 to 2.0 mil. You want it thin and flexible to conform tightly to the feed.
• Primary Black/White Cover: 5 to 6 mil is the sweet spot. It offers a great balance of durability, UV resistance, and cost for most hobby farm applications.
• Heavy-Duty Covers: 7 mil and up are for high-traffic areas, extremely long-term storage, or when you plan to reuse the cover for multiple years.

Sizing your tarp is critical: always buy bigger than you think you need. Measure the length and width of your pile at its base. Then, measure the height. A good rule of thumb for total width is: (pile width) + (2 x pile height) + (4-6 feet for overlap). Do the same for the length. Having extra plastic to weigh down in a trench or with gravel bags is far better than coming up short.

Ultimately, the best system for most small farms is a two-layer approach: a thin, dedicated oxygen barrier film directly on the feed, covered by a durable 5 or 6 mil black/white UV-protective sheet. This combination provides the best possible seal and protects your investment from damage, ensuring the feed you put in is the feed you get out.

Choosing the right silage tarp isn’t about spending the most money; it’s about making a smart investment. The small premium you pay for a quality oxygen barrier and a durable cover is returned tenfold in preserved nutrients, reduced spoilage, and the simple satisfaction of feeding your animals the high-quality forage you worked so hard to grow. Don’t let a cheap piece of plastic undermine a season’s worth of effort.