winter milk

case 5150

hi all, i have 15 heifers that were bulled last december and jan, i was contemplating on selling them freshly calved, now i thinking of holding on and milking over the winter as quota not a issue here, is this madness and is there a profit to be made from winter milking all opinions and advice and critism welcome

td5man

case 5150 wrote: »

hi all, i have 15 heifers that were bulled last december and jan, i was contemplating on selling them freshly calved, now i thinking of holding on and milking over the winter as quota not a issue here, is this madness and is there a profit to be made from winter milking all opinions and advice and critism welcome

Used to dry cows for Dec /Jan but have milked all year round for the last couple of years.
Probably not making a huge profit but it keeps a few € turning.
And it gives you something to do at Christmas, sure why would you want a few days of taking it easy. :-(

delaval

case 5150 wrote: »

hi all, i have 15 heifers that were bulled last december and jan, i was contemplating on selling them freshly calved, now i thinking of holding on and milking over the winter as quota not a issue here, is this madness and is there a profit to be made from winter milking all opinions and advice and critism welcome]

There are a few of things to consider here.
1. There is money in wintermilk but only with a contract be a liquid or a Bailey's.

2. We have always found that by far the highest price to be got for calved animals is for winter milkers. This has always been the case regardless as to wheather spring prices are high or low.

3. If you have the quota and will bull these again next May, and are able to keep the costs down for the winter I would consider keeping them. You will not make money but you will keep the stock that you obviously need. calve them and sell calves as you do not want to do this again

4. I think this is the one area where people will fall down post quota. They will stay milking late calvers through the winter when in fact a post quota situation demands a more ridgid spring calving regime.
The co-ops will love this because we will be fixing the seasonality for them without payment. This will further squeeze the contracted milkers. We will then be at each others throats as is starting to happen already and all to processors have to do is stand back. They will then have milk at a very low cost just like the supermarkets have done

case 5150

delaval wrote: »

There are a few of things to consider here.
1. There is money in wintermilk but only with a contract be a liquid or a Bailey's.

2. We have always found that by far the highest price to be got for calved animals is for winter milkers. This has always been the case regardless as to wheather spring prices are high or low.

3. If you have the quota and will bull these again next May, and are able to keep the costs down for the winter I would consider keeping them. You will not make money but you will keep the stock that you obviously need. calve them and sell calves as you do not want to do this again

4. I think this is the one area where people will fall down post quota. They will stay milking late calvers through the winter when in fact a post quota situation demands a more ridgid spring calving regime.
The co-ops will love this because we will be fixing the seasonality for them without payment. This will further squeeze the contracted milkers. We will then be at each others throats as is starting to happen already and all to processors have to do is stand back. They will then have milk at a very low cost just like the supermarkets have done

you say milk these and bull them next may would i not b losing money then as be 17 months from the time they 1st calved would i be better calved down, milk and bull december again and phase dem out as they dont go incalf over a 6 week period

mf240

Are Glanbia going to continue the seasonality scheme after we build the new factory for them?

mf240

case 5150 wrote: »

you say milk these and bull them next may would i not b losing money then as be 17 months from the time they 1st calved would i be better calved down, milk and bull december again and phase dem out as they dont go incalf over a 6 week period

They will milk well next summer and will milk well untill the grass runs out.

No need to spread it out.

delaval

case 5150 wrote: »

you say milk these and bull them next may would i not b losing money then as be 17 months from the time they 1st calved would i be better calved down, milk and bull december again and phase dem out as they dont go incalf over a 6 week period

Are you planning on selling them so? If you bull and keep won't they calve for the winter next year?
Am I missing some thing?

delaval

mf240 wrote: »

Are Glanbia going to continue the seasonality scheme after we build the new factory for them?

I think once quotas are gone seasonality will no longer be a problem. This has to be one of the worst thought out schemes of all time. I can see the need for it but it has blown up in their faces so far and has been abandoned this year again.
I am in winter milk so am unaffected:)

case 5150

delaval wrote: »

Are you planning on selling them so? If you bull and keep won't they calve for the winter next year?
Am I missing some thing?

sorry delaval, planning on calving them down and milk them this winter, might keep a few yo yo coming in, but was going to bull them again after xmas ta beef bull, but u were saying ta milk this winter and bull next may just wondering why was this? all help greatly appreciated

TEAT SQUEEZER

case 5150 wrote: »

sorry delaval, planning on calving them down and milk them this winter, might keep a few yo yo coming in, but was going to bull them again after xmas ta beef bull, but u were saying ta milk this winter and bull next may just wondering why was this? all help greatly appreciated

if u bull them after x mas they`ll calve as aut again next year when the quota situation may be very different... you could be producing expensive, low solids milk for base price and no bonus and end up paying super levy on the top of it...

in general any manufacturing supplier who calves cows in the autumn now or in the future is absofukinlutely crackers....

to endure full winter costs on these ladies all for a base price is insane..

as a liquid supplier i try and match to the gallon my daily supply/daily quota with later calvers(april) and minimum numbers of fresh calvers..

at this stage the bonus on reasonably cheap milk in oct,feb and march is the only thing worthwhile about winter milking...

the other winter months are a money pit and a slog....

i personally have no appetite for it anymore and have figures done for the last three years basically showing me i`m gaining nothing...

procrastination continues because i want to see how the dust settles post 2015......
basically op even the winter man knows that calving to grass is the way to go

delaval

case 5150 wrote: »

sorry delaval, planning on calving them down and milk them this winter, might keep a few yo yo coming in, but was going to bull them again after xmas ta beef bull, but u were saying ta milk this winter and bull next may just wondering why was this? all help greatly appreciated

You will end up with a winter calving group for 2 years if you bull again. If you do not bull and continue to milk you will be surprised what they will milk. Think about it, they will peak for you in the shed and will also get a good boost when you let them out so will milk a reasonable amount for their extended lactation.

I take your point about cashflow but in my opinion cash flow is good for paying bills and maybe not yourself.
I would read Teat Squeezers thread again he is spot on in all he says. Traditionally winter and liquid milk was produced on the edge of towns at railway stations or on later wetter land. That was all well and good when the bonus was worthwhile.

Of late the bonus has been eaten away with inflation and unless your costs are on the floor you will LOSE money and that's with a bonus. You are proposing to produce in the winter wthout a bonus and we struggle with one. I am not saying not to do it but I would do it for just the one year if you have quota and need to keep the cows. I guarantee that you will make much more profit from selling these animals calved, but as I said if you need the cows go for it.

We calve 20% of our cows in Sept and sell every one of them. The only way we can make money from winter milk is be using April calved cows milked through the winter. We feed a modest amount of nuts for the winter and feed with a shear grap so no fancy rations and no fancy machines to keep down the costs.

Our winter milkers get the same treatment as the rest of the cows in the back end, now we may bring in early to reduce demand on the back end grass but thats all. They will go out with the Spring calvers on the first of Feb (if not dry), so really only costing extra for 2 mths.

Having used TMR and fancy diets with cows milking a lot more we found this to be the only way the make money from winter production.
I know I'm rambling a bit but i hope this helps

case 956

when do most of ye that autumn calves start calving in the autumn

whelan1

case 956 wrote: »

when do most of ye that autumn calves start calving in the autumn

last year was early august , this year will be late august til october, with the exception of the heifer that i put up on pic thread that i would say will calve before the rest:rolleyes:

stanflt

case 956 wrote: »

when do most of ye that autumn calves start calving in the autumn

october-november

most profitable

case 956

stanflt wrote: »

october-november

most profitable

how is this time the most profitable?

stanflt

case 956 wrote: »

how is this time the most profitable?

the mid october calving cow will reach peak at last week november early dec when housed full time- she will be fed best possible ration and will have no walking to do

the august - sept calvers will reach peak when at grass with quaility deminishing daily combined with wet weather she will not consume the reguired dm as wet grass will reduce her rumen fill- this will result in lower milk solids and lower yields combined with weight loss which will inevitably result in poorer conception rates

this cow if she goes back in calve wont be milking next july when good quality fresh grass is available so her utilization of grass is poorer


results show that an october calver will produce 10% more milk per 365 on the same meal regardless of pd for kg milk

delaval

stanflt wrote: »

the mid october calving cow will reach peak at last week november early dec when housed full time- she will be fed best possible ration and will have no walking to do

the august - sept calvers will reach peak when at grass with quaility deminishing daily combined with wet weather she will not consume the reguired dm as wet grass will reduce her rumen fill- this will result in lower milk solids and lower yields combined with weight loss which will inevitably result in poorer conception rates

this cow if she goes back in calve wont be milking next july when good quality fresh grass is available so her utilization of grass is poorer


results show that an october calver will produce 10% more milk per 365 on the same meal regardless of pd for kg milk

+1 I was calving in Sept and found that the cows in Oct did better. Calving starting last week of Sept for 6 weeks, can't wait:(:(

case 956

thinking of myself keeping a few winter calvers but want max profit from them what is yer opinions of this

whelan1

next year will have mine calving from middle september and hopefully following year october....

Timmaay

TEAT SQUEEZER wrote: »

as a liquid supplier i try and match to the gallon my daily supply/daily quota with later calvers(april) and minimum numbers of fresh calvers..

at this stage the bonus on reasonably cheap milk in oct,feb and march is the only thing worthwhile about winter milking...

the other winter months are a money pit and a slog....

Ok as a person in winter milk, I'll embarrassingly admit that I still don't understand my milkcheque too well ha! We have a liquid contract, which moving forward I'm trying to do just as you said, match it with the bare minimum cows. In terms of that milk price though, in a year like this now, when the manufacturing milk price is very strong, does the liquid milk even make any sense at all? And one question here, is the oct/feb and march bonus only on the manufacturing milk, or on all your milk?

stanflt wrote: »

results show that an october calver will produce 10% more milk per 365 on the same meal regardless of pd for kg milk

A friend of mine, who knows dairying very well (He has been an AI man himself for years) strongly recommended I stick out wintermilk when I told him that I was considering giving it up, his argument of allowing cows slip over however makes even less sense in this scenario, if you have a tight compact feb/march calving, and try push any April/May ladies around until the following Oct, it will utterly destroy your CI. Moving forward there probably is no justification at all for letting cows slip around at all is there?

jersey101

Timmaay wrote: »

his argument of allowing cows slip over however makes even less sense in this scenario, if you have a tight compact feb/march calving, and try push any April/May ladies around until the following Oct, it will utterly destroy your CI. Moving forward there probably is no justification at all for letting cows slip around at all is there?

+1 thats what happened here, in order to try keep numbers up we had to let may and june calvers go around to winter milk. And now we have CI of 450 days.

Going to take two or three years to get it near to 380

TEAT SQUEEZER

start calving 2nd week oct .. 90% calved in 6 wks last year so pretty much doin as well as i can on that front... the peaking of these cows coincides with the drying off of the majority of the spring calvers... a big believer in only supplying what i`m getting a bonus payement on.... its up to the manuf lads to do whats best for themselves in the future and i can see many milking over the winter in times of a good price /cheaper meal etc... but to calve cows in trhe aut without a contract as op suggests is not on.....

TEAT SQUEEZER

Timmaay wrote: »

Ok as a person in winter milk, I'll embarrassingly admit that I still don't understand my milkcheque too well ha! We have a liquid contract, which moving forward I'm trying to do just as you said, match it with the bare minimum cows. In terms of that milk price though, in a year like this now, when the manufacturing milk price is very strong, does the liquid milk even make any sense at all? And one question here, is the oct/feb and march bonus only on the manufacturing milk, or on all your milk?

the strong manuf price is great cos its our base to which the bonus is added...:)... the oct ,feb and mar bonuses are equal in value to the other winter months but theres a good chance a lot of this milk will be produced off grass ( on this farm anyway) so its here that theres a little extra outta liq milk not in the depths of winter

TEAT SQUEEZER

jersey101 wrote: »

+1 thats what happened here, in order to try keep numbers up we had to let may and june calvers go around to winter milk. And now we have CI of 450 days.

Going to take two or three years to get it near to 380

i wouldnt bat an eyelid at ci when a herd is settling down like yours... as long as the core is keeping a good ci then paper figures will mean little in practise... if a farm has a couple of early calvings for instance its calving period lenght and 6 wk %age are all skewed with v little relevance to the actual reality on farm

TEAT SQUEEZER

anyone got any thoughts on optimum %age of liquid within overall quota ... i`m more interested in what lads think would be a min % post 2015... i`m at 70% liquid over all milk at 40 % aut calving... going to add 50% cows after 2015 but its unlikely i`d be able to fill liq quota with late spring calvers pre christmas and early jan spring calver post christmas..
i can see my self falling between 2 stools... any thoughts ?

Milked out

Calving here in Oct to start of Dec, Only get a bonus from nov to feb here over the man. base, the volume of bonus milk was capped back in 2011 so now working on just producing that amount. hopefully this year with good prices and good forage saved/ meal prices reducing somewhat the girls will be able to make up for the dire start to the year
On the rolling over of cows, it depends on the individual cow, if she can basically milk on with high enough yields she may pay her way if not she gets the road. Plus I find the high yielders that roll from autumn to spring would tend to hold first time in the next breeding season and then it's a case of firing in the highest fertility bull going. I would say focusing on the two distinct calving blocks would eventually weed out the infertile cows anyway, if you need to hold numbers, when numbers rise/ settle they can then be culled

mf240

TEAT SQUEEZER wrote: »

anyone got any thoughts on optimum %age of liquid within overall quota ... i`m more interested in what lads think would be a min % post 2015... i`m at 70% liquid over all milk at 40 % aut calving... going to add 50% cows after 2015 but its unlikely i`d be able to fill liq quota with late spring calvers pre christmas and early jan spring calver post christmas..
i can see my self falling between 2 stools... any thoughts ?

Calve your heifers in nov at around 30 months and milk them along with emptys for the winter. give the heifers five months before mating and they will calve down in feb following year. Emptys will pay their way for winter and will get a boost when grass comes. Then by august /sept they will be in goodish condition and you can factory them. Just when you would like to be reducing stocking rate.

jersey101

mf240 wrote: »

Calve your heifers in nov at around 30 months and milk them along with emptys for the winter. give the heifers five months before mating and they will calve down in feb following year. Emptys will pay their way for winter and will get a boost when grass comes. Then by august /sept they will be in goodish condition and you can factory them. Just when you would like to be reducing stocking rate.

calve heifers at 30 months?? Why?? Just because its winter milk doesnt mean it shouldn't be done right. Alot of research done by teagasc shows that a heifer calving down at 2 is most profitable, you get another years milk out of them and they have a greater chance of going back in calf next time. Also its gonna cost you more to keep that heifer fed if she calves at 30 months

mf240

I was thinking outside the box. for a way teat squeezer could fill his winter milk without actually calving many cows in autumn.

case885

jersey101 wrote: »

calve heifers at 30 months?? Why?? Just because its winter milk doesnt mean it shouldn't be done right. Alot of research done by teagasc shows that a heifer calving down at 2 is most profitable, you get another years milk out of them and they have a greater chance of going back in calf next time. Also its gonna cost you more to keep that heifer fed if she calves at 30 months

Dont believe everything teagasc tell ya, they tell us alot of things and when it all goes wrong they wont come and help ya! Iv seen alot of heifers calved at 2 that are alot smaller and dont produce as much as the later heifers around 30 months.

jersey101

If thats the case he would be better leaving the majority of his heifers to calf in spring and calf a few in winter and try leave them in winter and milk on late calvers, wouldn't be going down the road of heifers calving at 30 months of age

jersey101

case885 wrote: »

Dont believe everything teagasc tell ya, they tell us alot of things and when it all goes wrong they wont come and help ya! Iv seen alot of heifers calved at 2 that are alot smaller and dont produce as much as the later heifers around 30 months.

your right there alright but i see here any heifers that have calved at 3 are giants and give low yeilds and are very hard got back in calf, but im happy with having small cows that calved at 2 that go back in calf (bar a few) and peak at 22/23l a day.

mf240

big difference in 3 and 30 months.

Timmaay

case885 wrote: »

Dont believe everything teagasc tell ya, they tell us alot of things and when it all goes wrong they wont come and help ya! Iv seen alot of heifers calved at 2 that are alot smaller and dont produce as much as the later heifers around 30 months.

I'll agree that many 2yr old heifers calf down too small and as a result barely produce enough milk for your cornflakes, but I'd lay the blame here on the person rearing them, firstly all replacement heifers should be born early, so as they are actually calving down 2yrs later, and not 22months etc, secondly they need as good, if not better grassland management than cows. I'll admit straight out we fell into that boat last year, the cows get all the good grass, and the heifers get left on the outfarm on poor paddocks, they don't trive at all, and you end up pumping them full of expensive nuts to try and catch back up. This is why teagasc are fairly anal about all the heifer target weights etc.

whelan1

case 956 wrote: »

when do most of ye that autumn calves start calving in the autumn

my heifer calved today, alls ok... no more calving for at least 10 days

stanflt

whelan1 wrote: »

my heifer calved today, alls ok... no more calving for at least 10 days

best of luck with her-:)

whelan1

stanflt wrote: »

best of luck with her-:)

thanks..... shes well used to parlour as i tar them in there

Milked out

We calve a lot of our heifers at 2.5 and there is no problem with them going back in calf or their yields, If there's a problem with yields and fertility its likely to be an issue with condition score or some other underlying issue, if it's a fertility issue on it's own it could be due to genetics alrite, once other possible reasons are discounted. We are working on getting them all to calve at 2 yrs as it is more economical but we find the 2.5 yr old heifer is better able to compete in an autumn side once housed

case 956

lads and lady, i seriously considering winter milking as i have plenty of quota to fill and lakeland are giving a bonus scheme for dec,jan and feb, would it be worth my while going this route and would i need buy freshly calved/incalf cows or milk the 5 april calvers and empty over the winter

Timmaay

case 956 wrote: »

lads and lady, i seriously considering winter milking as i have plenty of quota to fill and lakeland are giving a bonus scheme for dec,jan and feb, would it be worth my while going this route and would i need buy freshly calved/incalf cows or milk the 5 april calvers and empty over the winter

How many cows, or how much milk would you aim to supply? You really got to work it out on an hourly bases, and see if milking them on is even worth your while, timewise. No point working out that you will receive X amount of extra income by milking them, but that working out at say only 3euro/hr for all the extra work. What's your housing like also? Cows in milk indoors will pick up bugs etc easier, and more chance of scc/mastitis issues. Then weather issues can be great fun, like snow/ice!

I'm fair from saying its definitely not worth it or anything, but make sure ya consider the whole picture. Finally ha, are ya definitely ok with milking on Christmas day!

case 956

the milking christmas doesnt bother me as cows have to be fed anyway.i b say milking 16 over the winter,say 8 autumn calvers rest stragglers spring and empty, thinking of the extra income to pay bills as this is a new entrant farm, also family help over the xmas

delaval

Timmaay wrote: »

Ok as a person in winter milk, I'll embarrassingly admit that I still don't understand my milkcheque too well ha! We have a liquid contract, which moving forward I'm trying to do just as you said, match it with the bare minimum cows. In terms of that milk price though, in a year like this now, when the manufacturing milk price is very strong, does the liquid milk even make any sense at all? And one question here, is the oct/feb and march bonus only on the manufacturing milk, or on all your milk?



A friend of mine, who knows dairying very well (He has been an AI man himself for years) strongly recommended I stick out wintermilk when I told him that I was considering giving it up, his argument of allowing cows slip over however makes even less sense in this scenario, if you have a tight compact feb/march calving, and try push any April/May ladies around until the following Oct, it will utterly destroy your CI. Moving forward there probably is no justification at all for letting cows slip around at all is there?

Tim,
I think that if you want to leave inter milk, this is not the time. From following your posts I think your business has a bit to go yet.
Your calving spread is log in the spring already and going into Spring calving may be the fashionable thing to do it's not for everyone without making a few changes first.

I would suggest that you serve your winter ladies for 6 weeks only and let the rest run around. Serve your spring ladies for 14 weeks next year. This will mean no cows calving in Dec, Jan or June. Again the following year as the herd produces more females you run empty Springs to autunm. You will need to do this for 3 years 'till enough heifers and then cull the dirt out of the herd.

I would suggest you use EBI to select your bulls. Select on fert and solids, Stan or Mahoney could advise, I get my brother to do it for me as I have no idea.

You mentioned xbreeding. This has gotten a bad name as too many see it as a silver bullet to solve all problems. In my view it suits large herds doing a lot of walking where one size needs to fit all and where hired help is involved. Crossing your cows with an out cross will probably achieve as much

I would suggest you get a mentor. I recon that person ay be your old man. Remamber nobody wants you to succeed more than him and he has far more experience. Think out what you want and discuss the life out of it and you'll soon find an ally.

Get a young lad to milk on Sunday so you can go away from the farm and blow out the tubes (twice if possible). For the breeding season get them on Sat pm and Sun pm as you need to be around for AI. If you leave things set up what harm can they do.

If you set about this with a plan for 5 years you'll get some satisfaction from it. Farming is not all about milking cows and how hard you work. Some of the most successful farmers may not always be the best farmers.

Milked out

Very good post above, also in relation to cows rolling over and destroying a calving interval figure, I wouldn't get overly worried about it, If those cows can milk well they will still earn a profit, may be less than the cow with 365 day figure but still a profit non the less, especially if they're only rolling from spring to autumn or vice versa. When you are where you want to be in terms of stock numbers and have plenty replacements coming you can work on removing the persistent offenders. A lot of these figures, while being relevant and good targets to aim for, should not dictate decisions majorly, especially in a growing business.

loveta

case 956 wrote: »

lads and lady, i seriously considering winter milking as i have plenty of quota to fill and lakeland are giving a bonus scheme for dec,jan and feb, would it be worth my while going this route and would i need buy freshly calved/incalf cows or milk the 5 april calvers and empty over the winter

There giving it for nov as well but you have to supply min of 40 or 45% of this years may supply "just cant remember at the min" to get the bonus also to get the full bonus ya have to buy .2kg of meal for every litre of milk supplied :mad::mad::mad. So make sure you will have enough milk to get it..