So anyone have their cows back inside?

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

U should go greengrass u could learn an afull lot there.be slow to criticise a high input /output system because these guys are incredibly well tuned in on how to correctly feed and manage their cows.u previously posted that u will start second round next week and ur first paddock has barely 800 in it.u could yet need to buffer feed hard for a while in april

I am going. I do feed cows well here.I know this man and his set up so I can comment.
This man had a very dry farm but I think he is being led down the wrong path by feeding maize and silage all year around.
For the level of feeding he is doing he's not getting the output and he would be better off if he put more focus on grass.
He is also lowly stocked

mahoney_j

Greengrass1 wrote: »

I am going. I do feed cows well here.I know this man and his set up so I can comment.
This man had a very dry farm but I think he is being led down the wrong path by feeding maize and silage all year around.
For the level of feeding he is doing he's not getting the output and he would be better off if he put more focus on grass.
He is also lowly stocked

What sort of yields of milk and solids is he achieving because if he is feeding to a high level his output should be high..I will agree he should put more focus on grass as it is our cheapest feed to produce.as regards feeding cows correctly I wasn't questing that but there is a big difference between just feeding cows and feeding them a balanced diet for energy protein etc.i learnt an afull lot going to open days like that and visiting farms.i also picked up a lot from visiting low input farms and seeing how they utilise grass.u have to try and marry bits of both.a lot of high input guys have no faith in grass,compact calving etc whilst low input guys have too much faith in grass and don't trulky realise how to feed and manage their cows to achieve their full potential.

blue5000

Freshly calved sucklers are out day and night here, got a bale of hay in a ringfeeder last night though. Dry cows in, all bulls in but heifer yearlings are out. Mostly dry land here but wet land still had pools of water sitting on it at the weekend.

sheebadog

mahoney_j wrote: »

What sort of yields of milk and solids is he achieving because if he is feeding to a high level his output should be high..I will agree he should put more focus on grass as it is our cheapest feed to produce.as regards feeding cows correctly I wasn't questing that but there is a big difference between just feeding cows and feeding them a balanced diet for energy protein etc.i learnt an afull lot going to open days like that and visiting farms.i also picked up a lot from visiting low input farms and seeing how they utilise grass.u have to try and marry bits of both.a lot of high input guys have no faith in grass,compact calving etc whilst low input guys have too much faith in grass and don't trulky realise how to feed and manage their cows to achieve their full potential.

+++ This man speaks wisely!!!

stanflt

sheebadog wrote: »

+++ This man speaks wisely!!!

I hope he entered the Zurich competition

mahoney_j

stanflt wrote: »

I hope he entered the Zurich competition

Me willy isn't big enough!!.in truth I'm not claiming to know it all as regards milking and feeding cows but I'd like to think I've a good understanding of what it takes to make a cow tick and to see her calve easily,go back in calf and milk to her full potential gives me fulfillment..I still have an assload to learn and will make loads more mistakes but as long as I learn from them that's what counts.entering competitions like that dosnt appeal to me but I do like to benchmark myself against what other farms do and take something from every place I visit.

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

What sort of yields of milk and solids is he achieving because if he is feeding to a high level his output should be high..I will agree he should put more focus on grass as it is our cheapest feed to produce.as regards feeding cows correctly I wasn't questing that but there is a big difference between just feeding cows and feeding them a balanced diet for energy protein etc.i learnt an afull lot going to open days like that and visiting farms.i also picked up a lot from visiting low input farms and seeing how they utilise grass.u have to try and marry bits of both.a lot of high input guys have no faith in grass,compact calving etc whilst low input guys have too much faith in grass and don't trulky realise how to feed and manage their cows to achieve their full potential.

Nothing said about solids or grass.
Said he was averaging 33l at the minute.
Very little said about diets just that if you buy a feeder all your problems will be solved.
I've come to the conclusion if you have v good baled silage for spring and autumn along with a very good but in parlour you will do just fine.
But if you have a very high SR and want to get more from cows then that's the road to go

Timmaay

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Nothing said about solids or grass.
Said he was averaging 33l at the minute.
Very little said about diets just that if you buy a feeder all your problems will be solved.
I've come to the conclusion if you have v good baled silage for spring and autumn along with a very good but in parlour you will do just fine.
But if you have a very high SR and want to get more from cows then that's the road to go

Agreed fully, but I'm willing to substitute some of the silage with maize/wholecrop, due to lack of land to rent around me, and considering the cowtype we have (HOs). 33l doesn't mean much to me, how many kgMS/day is much more useful.

Deepsouthwest

joejobrien wrote: »

Greengrass1 Have you considered other lads situation. Heavy land require great care and that a defination of a good farmer. Thats a fair reason to be in,its not for the comfort of you or cows. Have our cow out by day when it allows but have to stay indoor when condition deteroriate. There is no proplem been a good farmer if you have dry land and they can be out fulltime. But when your paddocks are swimming after rainfall you cant go out until there is some drying and we dont get much of that. Unfortunately alot of posters on here appear to be on dry land and or lightly stocked. Would love to be out fulltime but it is not realistic .Maybe a little consideration to others may be nice.

Finally someone in the same boat as me! Couldn't get over the pictures greengrass put up a while back showing how little damage his cows did to a paddock after being out during a wet night in feb, it nearly made me cry!

Greengrass1

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Finally someone in the same boat as me! Couldn't get over the pictures greengrass put up a while back showing how little damage his cows did to a paddock after being out during a wet night in feb, it nearly made me cry!

Ah I've the oul wet spot too that ye don't see.
Neighbour told my father we bought a bog when we bought here. Father told him bad land didn't stop at the ditch. He didn't like that

Timmaay

stanflt wrote: »

Cows stayed out all day yesterday and no problems

Doing 33litres but in at night

Weighed all the cows yesterday- 616kg avg

So I delivered 1.09 kg ms per kg lw last year or 0,48 kg protein per kg lw

Stan I thought you were mostly on good dry land? Are the cows still in at night due to a lack of grass, or poor weather/grazing conditions, or are us folk who have had our cows out fulltime for a few weeks now just plan and simply nuts ha?

jack o shea

any clown can farm on dry sandy land in this rain swept country, its lads on heavy land is where the challenge lies, a heavy shower of rain and cows have to go back in and its back to cleaning cubicles and a bucket of lime and walking around the fields trying to find a dry couple of acres for the nxt "fine" day.

biddy2013

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Finally someone in the same boat as me! Couldn't get over the pictures greengrass put up a while back showing how little damage his cows did to a paddock after being out during a wet night in feb, it nearly made me cry!

ah wait til theres a bit of sun in the summer and they will be feeding again:D

frazzledhome

mahoney_j wrote: »

U should go greengrass u could learn an afull lot there.be slow to criticise a high input /output system because these guys are incredibly well tuned in on how to correctly feed and manage their cows.u previously posted that u will start second round next week and ur first paddock has barely 800 in it.u could yet need to buffer feed hard for a while in april

Why does feeding a cow need to be such a mystery. Grass does the job and if it's wet or not enough supplement with good quality feed in the parlour, simple.

Make the very best quality silage you can and carry no passengers. No need to go to listen to a sales man selling a machine. Some people think that when they have a problem that a machine will fix it, milking get a robot, dietary issues get a feeder, calf problems get an auto feeder. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with these but a good grazing infrastructure and being switched on goes a long way.

Keep it simple, that's how to make money from cows

Greengrass1

frazzledhome wrote: »

Why does feeding a cow need to be such a mystery. Grass does the job and if it's wet or not enough supplement with good quality feed in the parlour, simple.

Make the very best quality silage you can and carry no passengers. No need to go to listen to a sales man selling a machine. Some people think that when they have a problem that a machine will fix it, milking get a robot, dietary issues get a feeder, calf problems get an auto feeder. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with these but a good grazing infrastructure and being switched on goes a long way.

Keep it simple, that's how to make money from cows

Your man said he had a feeder before and sold it and was going completely grass but then his meal bills started to rise.
He mustn't have tried that hard at it because he told me when I asked that the whole farm had been grazed last week

mahoney_j

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Your man said he had a feeder before and sold it and was going completely grass but then his meal bills started to rise.
He mustn't have tried that hard at it because he told me when I asked that the whole farm had been grazed last week

No farmer in this country can say there goibg all grass lads and don't be fooled by it.fairly obvious ye don't like Holsteins and that high input output systems are the work of the devil.i may be wrong but I think ye may of went to that event yesterday with yer minds made up that there is only one way of feeding a cow.33 Ltrs is good goibg and testament that diet is very good.i bet he is doing over 2 kg solids per cow.yes more and better use should be made of grass though.it was a Keenan event I take it so it was a sales pitch for their feeders.if you showed interest in one they have an excellent back up team of nutritionists etc who would put you on the right road as regards feeding a balanced diet.
Silage on its own with good parlour but will go a long way provided it is very good quality,>77 dmd,14% p etc.there ain't many that can make silage that good.

joejobrien

mahoney_j wrote: »

No farmer in this country can say there goibg all grass lads and don't be fooled by it.fairly obvious ye don't like Holsteins and that high input output systems are the work of the devil.i may be wrong but I think ye may of went to that event yesterday with yer minds made up that there is only one way of feeding a cow.33 Ltrs is good goibg and testament that diet is very good.i bet he is doing over 2 kg solids per cow.yes more and better use should be made of grass though.it was a Keenan event I take it so it was a sales pitch for their feeders.if you showed interest in one they have an excellent back up team of nutritionists etc who would put you on the right road as regards feeding a balanced diet.
Silage on its own with good parlour but will go a long way provided it is very good quality,>77 dmd,14% p etc.there ain't many that can make silage that good.

Well said mahoney,
people at lower yields and on an all grass system cannot possible comment until they have tried high input system, high output system. It is a complete no no from our advisory board, but it is easy for them to justify as the majority of farmers are understocked, access to enough of milking platform, and sadly alot of farmers are not up to speed or do not wish to be up to speed with mangement of high production holstiens and are happy to just tag along with the teagasc system, never giving an ounce of thought. The advisory board also ignores us farmers that are completely landlocked,unable to expand numbers and our only way is to drive a high output system. Yes it works. As I see it we produce more solids than any lad in our group, highest fertility, (95% calved in 7 weeks) on the smallest landbase which is heavy land. I do agree grass is awonderful feed but has limitations. Knowing the limitation is key.

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

No farmer in this country can say there goibg all grass lads and don't be fooled by it.fairly obvious ye don't like Holsteins and that high input output systems are the work of the devil.i may be wrong but I think ye may of went to that event yesterday with yer minds made up that there is only one way of feeding a cow.33 Ltrs is good goibg and testament that diet is very good.i bet he is doing over 2 kg solids per cow.yes more and better use should be made of grass though.it was a Keenan event I take it so it was a sales pitch for their feeders.if you showed interest in one they have an excellent back up team of nutritionists etc who would put you on the right road as regards feeding a balanced diet.
Silage on its own with good parlour but will go a long way provided it is very good quality,>77 dmd,14% p etc.there ain't many that can make silage that good.

We have a feeder, we had there advice and we had a bill every year of nearly 1k off them and all they wanted to do was get us buy 10 of everything and have feed every where.
We did it there way for 2 yrs and weren't a whole lot better off tbh.
Last two yrs our silage has been shire 68 DMD but they were exceptional years.

You seem to think that I don't like feeding cows.
You are completely and utterly wrong. I myself feel you don't need a big feeder in the yard and a nutritionist to do it.
We only ever made baled silage here because its what we could get best quality in. And we will continue to do so.

Plenty of lads well able to look after cows without a feeder and I know plenty of them.
And so do you.

I didn't go with my made up I wanted to see a different system and my father and I feel we won't be going back down that road for a ffgoid few yrs yet.
I'd much prefere have my farm stocked to its highest and be growing 16-17t DM and then look at other ways of getting more from it.
There's much better ways of spending 25k + than on a diet feeder

frazzledhome

mahoney_j wrote: »

No farmer in this country can say there goibg all grass lads and don't be fooled by it.fairly obvious ye don't like Holsteins and that high input output systems are the work of the devil.i may be wrong but I think ye may of went to that event yesterday with yer minds made up that there is only one way of feeding a cow.33 Ltrs is good goibg and testament that diet is very good.i bet he is doing over 2 kg solids per cow.yes more and better use should be made of grass though.it was a Keenan event I take it so it was a sales pitch for their feeders.if you showed interest in one they have an excellent back up team of nutritionists etc who would put you on the right road as regards feeding a balanced diet.
Silage on its own with good parlour but will go a long way provided it is very good quality,>77 dmd,14% p etc.there ain't many that can make silage that good.

No prob with Hols or hi v low input, I suspect it's your paranoia!!
People don't have to make feeding cows into something complicated is all I'm saying as for K nutritionalists we'll say the jury's out on that one. Got the tshirt

kevthegaff

Lads is there a lot less waste from a diet feeder? I have one tractor so its a no no for me, but they are a great job for introducing straw into the diet. I agree with ye its the quality of feed that matters

mahoney_j

Greengrass1 wrote: »

We have a feeder, we had there advice and we had a bill every year of nearly 1k off them and all they wanted to do was get us buy 10 of everything and have feed every where.
We did it there way for 2 yrs and weren't a whole lot better off tbh.
Last two yrs our silage has been shire 68 DMD but they were exceptional years.

You seem to think that I don't like feeding cows.
You are completely and utterly wrong. I myself feel you don't need a big feeder in the yard and a nutritionist to do it.
We only ever made baled silage here because its what we could get best quality in. And we will continue to do so.

Plenty of lads well able to look after cows without a feeder and I know plenty of them.
And so do you.

I didn't go with my made up I wanted to see a different system and my father and I feel we won't be going back down that road for a ffgoid few yrs yet.
I'd much prefere have my farm stocked to its highest and be growing 16-17t DM and then look at other ways of getting more from it.
There's much better ways of spending 25k + than on a diet feeder

I've no feeder,maize,whole crop, and only feed through parlour.my silage fed to milkers is excellent though and that's what gets me through to get high yields of milk and solids.grass makes up most of my feed and like the silage for the most part it is excellent but it's quality is different at different stages ofvthecyear and from
Paddock to paddock.
I if I was paying a guy 1 k a year for nutritional advice and getting little return he would be binned.never said you don't like feeding cows but there is a big difference between just feeding cows and feeding them a balanced diet to reach full potential.growing 16/17 tonne of grass consistently will be very hard in this country unless u have favourable weather and index 3 and 4 p and k index.it is achievable though.maby u didn't go with ur eyes shut to that meeting but I just get the impression from ur posts here that all your milk can be produced from grass and that achieving high milk yields is only at the expense of diluting ur solids which six way off the mark.achieving high milk yields and high solids kg along with excellent fertility is achievable as long as management levels and an open mind is present

case 956

cows need concentrates as well as grass, as Mahoney said grass varies I paddock to paddock and weather conditions. Silage needs to be top quality made and we are landlocked in this country with a luck miniority few able to milk 2 or 300 cows. so for the farmer landlocked his aim is for solids and volume so 1 ton plus of nuts is going to be fed. Cows will milk from mid may to august on grass alone with nuts the wet day and drought times but cows in the shoulder need nuts and also the extra feed hels take pressure off cow and help her go incalf easily. 17 ton of grass grown is a bit far fetched unless you have top quality soil fertility and there is very very few that ha a landbase capabe of growing this year in year out as again weather plays a major part on our business

Greengrass1

mahoney_j wrote: »

I've no feeder,maize,whole crop, and only feed through parlour.my silage fed to milkers is excellent though and that's what gets me through to get high yields of milk and solids.grass makes up most of my feed and like the silage for the most part it is excellent but it's quality is different at different stages ofvthecyear and from
Paddock to paddock.
I if I was paying a guy 1 k a year for nutritional advice and getting little return he would be binned.never said you don't like feeding cows but there is a big difference between just feeding cows and feeding them a balanced diet to reach full potential.growing 16/17 tonne of grass consistently will be very hard in this country unless u have favourable weather and index 3 and 4 p and k index.it is achievable though.maby u didn't go with ur eyes shut to that meeting but I just get the impression from ur posts here that all your milk can be produced from grass and that achieving high milk yields is only at the expense of diluting ur solids which six way off the mark.achieving high milk yields and high solids kg along with excellent fertility is achievable as long as management levels and an open mind is present

When I say we didn't get anything from it I mean when we started doing the mix our own way we found it just as good with only 3 ingredients.
Brewers and citrus and our own mix of barley beet pulp and soya. So we scraped it.
Between the feeder naintaince and nutrionist every year its was costing close to 900e.
The best thing I find it for is mixing up the soya and ration and silage for the weanling heifers.

But I won't go full blown feeding again for a long time.

Farmer in my discussion group purchased one thus year as he is stocked to the last and feeds silage all the way till April. 120 cows on 90 acres.
That made good sense to me

John_F

frazzledhome wrote: »

Why does feeding a cow need to be such a mystery. Grass does the job and if it's wet or not enough supplement with good quality feed in the parlour, simple.

Make the very best quality silage you can and carry no passengers. No need to go to listen to a sales man selling a machine. Some people think that when they have a problem that a machine will fix it, milking get a robot, dietary issues get a feeder, calf problems get an auto feeder. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with these but a good grazing infrastructure and being switched on goes a long way.

Keep it simple, that's how to make money from cows

ahh frazzled you know its not true, a cow doing 50 l doesn't compare to a cow doing 15, simple.

paying a guy 1000 a year to make up diets is ridiculous anyway unless there are serious results, still in by night here, feeding maize, grass and meal, takes about 20 minutes to feed up 100 cows. are we bad farmers? grass is an important part of irish dairying sure, but as a feed it must be the most variable out there, cows like consistency as mundane as it is.

keep going

A phrase that has come up several times is the word" land locked".in my veiw that is all in your head with quotas going.one option and the prefered option for me is to lease a larger block and milk the cows there for season and winter them at home.calve them at home and once they are up and running move them to the other block where I would hire someone to milk them there from march to the end of june maybe. all the problem cows and calves would be handled by myself at home.the home block would be cut for silage and slurry spread at home mostly with some outside ground and all the grass that would grow on the main milking block would be consumed there either grazed or as bales.I think it would be labour and deisel efficient.finding a suitable block is difficult but I think it will get easier to do so in the future and I would favour a silent partnership route ie only me running it not 2 inputs into decision making of the daily running of the farm

joejobrien

keep going wrote: »

A phrase that has come up several times is the word" land locked".in my veiw that is all in your head with quotas going.one option and the prefered option for me is to lease a larger block and milk the cows there for season and winter them at home.calve them at home and once they are up and running move them to the other block where I would hire someone to milk them there from march to the end of june maybe. all the problem cows and calves would be handled by myself at home.the home block would be cut for silage and slurry spread at home mostly with some outside ground and all the grass that would grow on the main milking block would be consumed there either grazed or as bales.I think it would be labour and deisel efficient.finding a suitable block is difficult but I think it will get easier to do so in the future and I would favour a silent partnership route ie only me running it not 2 inputs into decision making of the daily running of the farm

Sounds an ideal world. Another mirror of Greenfields.
Have you tried looking for such a site coupled with farm roadways, Milking palour......or are you going to build this?,You wiil require collection yard, crush, slurry storage for palour washings/ collection yd. etc It has to be serious good land to carry cows fulltime from March onwards, handle all types of wether. There may be a few places but certainly far and few between currently. Have you costed this system? IMO it appears you would be quite busy, milking more cows to pay for an extra labour unit, Would one not have a little more comfortable lifestyle by feeding and milking a high production holstien cow, manging, by oneself. .By the way I know of a lad who has a very similar system to what you described. He put in a pad on advice of Teagasc bulit a M Palour etc, calves at home, then moves onto the bigger farmfor remainder of year. He has since changed from pad to now covering with a v. large shed, even though it is v. dry farm but during v. wet wether to use his own words " it s not for the faint hearted"
Its rough. plain and simple on both man and beast, thus shed .Future..... will hopefully follow on with the rest ,ie cubicles etc.
The moral of the story is, He has so much ploughed in he has to stay where he is but if he had a second chance he certainly would have stay ed where he was. O Yea ...his family time ? guess TAKING HIS WIFE AND KIDS MILKING.
Bigger is not always better.
Iwould like very much to have larger land base but such is not there:mad:

case 956

split rain between 3 and 5pm today, paddock was in ****e, trying to graze last paddock of reseed but roving difficult without damage, cows in tonight, dry since 5 hope it dries out over night so they can get grass again... god if your reading this **** off with your rain we have enough

whelan2

mine are in at night anyway and will be in tomorrow, got jeep stuck when getting them this evening

jack o shea

its more like 2nd of feb than april im cracking up already dont know about the rest of ye!!its raining none stop since about the 10th of december apart from an odd day here and there.

whelan2

jack o shea wrote: »

its more like 2nd of feb than april im cracking up already dont know about the rest of ye!!its raining none stop since about the 10th of december apart from an odd day here and there.

:rolleyes::rolleyes: