ration

Miller80

Just wondering where are people buying their dairy rations these days and any good deals out there? in the last few wks I have had a load of salesmen calling.

whelan1

just had our purchasing group meeting the other night 14-16 % nuts are around 230/tonee . one feed company had the cal/mag in 7lb of meal... that would be alot of meal to be feeding in the summer me thinks

djmc

At the moment I have too much grass to even feed the ration I have in the bin
I would not dream of buying ration in this weather unless I was over stocked or
short of grass

Miller80

At the moment I have too much grass to even feed the ration I have in the bin
I would not dream of buying ration in this weather unless I was over stocked or
short of grass

have loads of grass as well but I feed nuts to the higher yielders that cant get enough kgs of dry matter from grass.

dar31

ordered 6 ton of glanbia this eve,
14% supreme dairy grazer?????
just about enough grass cows comming off 4kg/dm maize in the next few days, will top up heifers any any thin cows in the parlour

whelan1

dar31 wrote: »

ordered 6 ton of glanbia this eve,
14% supreme dairy grazer?????
just about enough grass cows comming off 4kg/dm maize in the next few days, will top up heifers any any thin cows in the parlour

how much ? just interested can tell you what the group price is

babybrian

bought ration from liffeys about 10 days ago at €235/T with cal-mag added.. 16%. currently feeding 2kgs to keep the cal-mag into them..

whelan1

babybrian wrote: »

bought ration from liffeys about 10 days ago at €235/T with cal-mag added.. 16%. currently feeding 2kgs to keep the cal-mag into them..

just wondering did you ever put the cal/mag in the drinkers, would be a hell of a saving on feed , i normally feed through out the summer

PMU

whelan1 wrote: »

just wondering did you ever put the cal/mag in the drinkers, would be a hell of a saving on feed , i normally feed through out the summer

yes,but its complicated by the fact that when it rains,they drink less,so are more exposed to tetany. pasture dusting would be more reliable. you could mix it with rolled barley and put into the troughs before the cows come in.
a bit laborious but you only need a few oz of barley each.

dar31

PMU wrote: »

yes,but its complicated by the fact that when it rains,they drink less,so are more exposed to tetany. pasture dusting would be more reliable. you could mix it with rolled barley and put into the troughs before the cows come in.
a bit laborious but you only need a few oz of barley each.

we use a dosatron (proportional liquid dispenser) to put the mag and minerals in the water, it can then be adjusted to the proportion of solution it intakes, turn it up on a wet day and down on a dry on. very handy way of getting it into the cows and young stock.

€240ish for 14% nut, cant remember the name on it, good spec'ed one.

keep going

just wondering does anybody else count how many days in the month you have to milk to pay the ration bill for the month in orther words if you are supplying 500 euros of milk a day and the ration bill is 2000 then you are milking 4 days for the feed company

whelan1

dar31 wrote: »

we use a dosatron (proportional liquid dispenser) to put the mag and minerals in the water, it can then be adjusted to the proportion of solution it intakes, turn it up on a wet day and down on a dry on. very handy way of getting it into the cows and young stock.

€240ish for 14% nut, cant remember the name on it, good spec'ed one.

we can not seperate the outside water line from the line that goes to the house , so i dont think a pump is a runner here. some of the lads in our disscusson group where talking about mixing up stuff and putting it in the drinkers each day

PMU

keep going wrote: »

just wondering does anybody else count how many days in the month you have to milk to pay the ration bill for the month in orther words if you are supplying 500 euros of milk a day and the ration bill is 2000 then you are milking 4 days for the feed company

on grass now,28lts milk is about E9,2 kgs ration-48c.last year my meal cost 3.2cent per ltr. cal mag costs about 4cent per day.

jeff greene

keep going wrote: »

just wondering does anybody else count how many days in the month you have to milk to pay the ration bill for the month in orther words if you are supplying 500 euros of milk a day and the ration bill is 2000 then you are milking 4 days for the feed company

I do that too, current milk value per cow is €11.80, buffer of meal and maize is €2.40. Condition and submission is excellent

keep going

got tight on grass last week so went in with 4 kilos but have been doing the sums on it and i reckon i am up 200l a day which is worth 66e and the ration is costing 60e a day.the last time i did the sum was in 09 and found i was loosing money.its not that im arguing with wether to put in ration or not(reckon its alot better than trying to graze semi-silage grass in this weather)but it kind of says to me there is no profit in feeding ration with grass

whelan1

would a 12% ration be ok ? or would it be best to stick with a 14%

jeff greene

keep going wrote: »

got tight on grass last week so went in with 4 kilos but have been doing the sums on it and i reckon i am up 200l a day which is worth 66e and the ration is costing 60e a day.the last time i did the sum was in 09 and found i was loosing money.its not that im arguing with wether to put in ration or not(reckon its alot better than trying to graze semi-silage grass in this weather)but it kind of says to me there is no profit in feeding ration with grass

Thats interesting, 200l/day is alot, how many cows? Type and cost of ration?

Of course in a quota situation, for milk sales it doesn't pay to feed, not counting other sides of feeding. But in a non quota era, €6/day over 300 days is €1800

Many variables in it too, some cows give better responce, meal and milk price etc

keep going

absolultly jeff no prob with that,the great thing about joining the discussion group was that i realised that there is no one way to farm and that every set up is different.fellas are not dumb(ok some are) and farm the way they do for reasons particular to that set up.around 50 cows going the tank kept most of the calves apart from the very early ones so7 still feeding calves and some of that extra was allowance for s**t weather as in they didnt go up that much but would have gone down in this flood to my eternal shame i didnt price it as i only ordered 2.5 to 3 ton but they landed out over 4:mad:

mossy1

whelan1 wrote: »

just had our purchasing group meeting the other night 14-16 % nuts are around 230/tonee . one feed company had the cal/mag in 7lb of meal... that would be alot of meal to be feeding in the summer me thinks

Can anyone tell what price 14-16% nut is at the minute??

babybrian

last I bought was 14% nut about 2 weeks ago from Liffeys, collected, it was €242/T but have cut out ration now so happy days...Will be probably over quota so dont think I'll bother with any more rations, If grass gets low then cows are going to be getting some silage that was baled in first week in May..

snowman707

Roches Limerick 16% nut 245 per ton , over a month ago