national liquid milk event

TEAT SQUEEZER

did anyone attend this years event?.. if so what did u think.?..

stop thelights

I didn't get the chance to go but I'd be interested in hearing about the farmer would winter milked on grass silage , (no beet or maize or whole crop) how he made it work. What were the extra costs in ration and how did in rise in prices affect growing your own crops. I'm guessing joe Patton had a some sort of comparison in relation to bad years in crops like last year and bad years in ration prices.

Also did he run a diet feeder, Oopf's to top up cows???

Timmaay

I'm in wintermilk, and do just that, only grass silage and parlour nuts. Bad years like last winter are a disaster, cows didnt milk well at all on the wet low protein silage, and bridging the gap with high protein nuts cost an arm and a leg. Good few lads around me exiting wintermilk, I'll be following as soon as the herd fertility allows!

But yep would be interesting to see what the costs are like! On the diet feeder, don't have one here either, but considering buffer feeding the autumn cows with a cheap nut in the middle of the day, just scatter it out in the feeding passage on their silage.

Milked out

Didn't go to the event, would be interested in how different farms winter milk set ups would be like alrite. Use maize, grass silage and a high protein ration to balance the diet here during the winter. The maize doesn't really reduce the ration cost when in fulltime as we generally need 24% p ration to balance it depending on how the diet is made up, what we find is that cows hold condition well while milking when maize is in the diet and in turn are performing that bit better at breeding in dec/jan. If cows are at grass the meal bill could be reduced if buffer feeding with maize alright without affecting performance too much, storage can be an issue tho. Have a diet feeder as cows don't have enough space to feed at once and the heifers would suffer, at least with the feeder every bite should theoretically be the same so its just a case of keeping it pushed in.

TEAT SQUEEZER

i dont feed maize or beet here either.... feed a base of straights through tmr and top, up in parlour... have kept meal feeding under a ton for last 3 yrs (overall herd) with this system ... when at grass meal feeding is reduced asap.. would be a firm believer with what dr joe has to say about compact calving and with just sufficient numbers BUT the question is is efficient winter production topping spring prod... so hard to get a definitive answer to that one... the losing of the hour at w/e has me questioning my love for winter milking:D hard to work in the dark

Milked out

yeah haven't heard a straight answer to that question either, esp when land type has such a bearing on it. With over half our ground being heavy it allows us to produce well over what a spring system would, the buildings will have to be there anyway. The extra milk produced may not be produced as profitably but it is still profitable, once a price/ weather year like 09 doesn't rear its head too often...
October is the busiest month hear with cows calving, spring herd still milking and a lot of groups to manage at grass on heavy ground, It is actually easier when they are all in, more structure to the day anyways. I have thought about spring milk only but I have a lot of improvements to make both on farm and to my management skills and with quotas going I'll hold tough a while and see how it pans out

TEAT SQUEEZER

Milked out wrote: »

yeah haven't heard a straight answer to that question either, esp when land type has such a bearing on it. With over half our ground being heavy it allows us to produce well over what a spring system would, the buildings will have to be there anyway. The extra milk produced may not be produced as profitably but it is still profitable, once a price/ weather year like 09 doesn't rear its head too often...
October is the busiest month hear with cows calving, spring herd still milking and a lot of groups to manage at grass on heavy ground, It is actually easier when they are all in, more structure to the day anyways. I have thought about spring milk only but I have a lot of improvements to make both on farm and to my management skills and with quotas going I'll hold tough a while and see how it pans out

i agree will see what the post 2015 picture is...

delaval

We are in winter milk here also. Silage tested and nut/ration blended to suit. No TMR parlour feeding and a shear grab.

I've done the beet and maize tmr and all that but didn't like the system too much messing on a tractor

We now calve winter girls in Oct and sell 70% of them as the price is better. All are in calf to Sbulls and all calves are sold inc heifers. We dont want to complicate the system with extra groups around the place. most of our winter milk is produced by cows that run around and by the April calvers. All cows are milked here to 6 weeks before calving with the obvious exceptions of the lame and under condition ones.

I think the biggest costs in winter milk are calving too many cows for your contract and not having block calving. Most herds are actually calviny AYR. These things have a bigger bearing on profitability than a fleet of Masseys moving feed around the yard

whelan1

delaval wrote: »

We are in winter milk here also. Silage tested and nut/ration blended to suit. No TMR parlour feeding and a shear grab.

I've done the beet and maize tmr and all that but didn't like the system too much messing on a tractor

We now calve winter girls in Oct and sell 70% of them as the price is better. All are in calf to Sbulls and all calves are sold inc heifers. We dont want to complicate the system with extra groups around the place. most of our winter milk is produced by cows that run around and by the April calvers. All cows are milked here to 6 weeks before calving with the obvious of the lame and under condition ones.

I think the biggest costs in winter milk are calving too many cows for your contract and not having block calving. Most herds are actually calviny AYR. These things have a bigger bearing on profitability than a fleet of Masseys moving feed around the yard

this is my second year block calving waiting now on last cow to calve , would do your head in , just want to be finished

Brown Podzol

delaval wrote: »

We are in winter milk here also. Silage tested and nut/ration blended to suit. No TMR parlour feeding and a shear grab.

I've done the beet and maize tmr and all that but didn't like the system too much messing on a tractor

We now calve winter girls in Oct and sell 70% of them as the price is better. All are in calf to Sbulls and all calves are sold inc heifers. We dont want to complicate the system with extra groups around the place. most of our winter milk is produced by cows that run around and by the April calvers. All cows are milked here to 6 weeks before calving with the obvious of the lame and under condition ones.

I think the biggest costs in winter milk are calving too many cows for your contract and not having block calving. Most herds are actually calviny AYR. These things have a bigger bearing on profitability than a fleet of Masseys moving feed around the yard

Milk long lactation as well here at times. The most profitable cow in this system is the cow with a flat lactation curve. Dried off HRZ cows doing 20lts having only peaked at 32/33lts. I'm blue in the face from asking AI co's for this info. Should be easy enough to get for daughter proven bulls.