Zero grazing v walking

Deepsouthwest

Thinking about nxt yr, stocking rate maxed out already on milking block, but have another 30 acres of silage ground just over a mile away, with a farm roadway going half of this, then public road the rest. Would it be worth walking cows that far early and late in the yr, or should I consider zero grazing?

darragh_haven

Two things come to mind. What cow type have you and is it a back road or a busy road. If you can avoid the expense of a zero grazers at all, I would. The distance shouldn't be a problem (just day time) if it was only 2 weeks at the start of the year and 2 weeks at the end.

kevthegaff

i let the cows down the road 3/4 of a mile very very quiet road, let them off wash up and pass them 15 mins later!

Deepsouthwest

darragh_haven wrote: »

Two things come to mind. What cow type have you and is it a back road or a busy road. If you can avoid the expense of a zero grazers at all, I would. The distance shouldn't be a problem (just day time) if it was only 2 weeks at the start of the year and 2 weeks at the end.

Mostly crossbred herd, so feet should be ok, but it would still be at least a 4km round trip from yard to gap. At a walk at Pat Weeks in Limerick last yr and he said he believes a cow loses a litre for every kilometre they have to walk. Would def prefer not to go down more machinery route, but just looking at my options

Greengrass1

What about making silage every 30 days and having super stuff for spring and autumn to stretch grass on main block?

Deepsouthwest

Greengrass1 wrote: »

What about making silage every 30 days and having super stuff for spring and autumn to stretch grass on main block?

Yeah, not a bad idea, taking all options on board

joejobrien

Just keep in mind that light fades early in latter part of year, rain or a dirty even can be a no no. for walking cows. i know a lad that would let off cows 2.30/3pm on those even and could go earlier aswell. He was on a busy piece of road. ALso require extra manpower for crossing. Since got a tunnel . This may not be applicable if on a q. rd

Deepsouthwest

Would love to get the real figures of zero grazed grass, not the figures from the guys selling them. In an ideal world I'd talk my contractor into buying one!

Timmaay

There were one or two lads seriously considering ZG over on forum4farmers a while back, you should have a look there.I'd exhaust all other options firstly, like looking at the neighbours land and seeing if it would suit both parties to say exchange land, if you had to pay money alongside your land for say something adjacent your own block it would obviously be well worth it.

mahoney_j

Timmaay wrote: »

There were one or two lads seriously considering ZG over on forum4farmers a while back, you should have a look there.I'd exhaust all other options firstly, like looking at the neighbours land and seeing if it would suit both parties to say exchange land, if you had to pay money alongside your land for say something adjacent your own block it would obviously be well worth it.

I'd agree with that ,id avoid z grazing line the plague.a neighbour of mine milks 110 cows on 54 acres.he changes tractor every 3,years and tyres do be bald.if he's not on road with z grazer it's the slurry tank or fert spreader.itvtakes him about 1 hour 10 minutes from when he hitches up ,cuts ,back to yard and unloads.disrance 3 miles.ofcten cuts 3 loads a day..he is sick of it now and said the block he cuts off gets very ran down from been constantly cut.

severeoversteer

mahoney_j wrote: »

I'd agree with that ,id avoid z grazing line the plague.a neighbour of mine milks 110 cows on 54 acres.he changes tractor every 3,years and tyres do be bald.if he's not on road with z grazer it's the slurry tank or fert spreader.itvtakes him about 1 hour 10 minutes from when he hitches up ,cuts ,back to yard and unloads.disrance 3 miles.ofcten cuts 3 loads a day..he is sick of it now and said the block he cuts off gets very ran down from been constantly cut.

how long would you leave between zero grazing ? could you leave it till every second day or every third?

to save the hassle of doing it everyday

lexion14

It's alot of work. Would the cows have to be put into shed for feeding the grass or what way would it work. It probably would pay to do but again it's alot of hassle again you yoke up machine drive their cut drive back & then feed out. Cows would be very content on that system though. Wouldn't take them long to satisfy their demand & would start lying down then which is when they are happy.

keep going

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Would love to get the real figures of zero grazed grass, not the figures from the guys selling them. In an ideal world I'd talk my contractor into buying one!

If your not far from me id like that too, just to be able to get it done every now and again when you are stuck rather than building into a system in a big way.

frazzledhome

Lads I can't give you any figures but I can give you my experience. I zgrazed for 5 years in the early 90's. Same reasons as everyone else, silage ground that bit too far to walk to.

Great system and massive intakes with content cows. Would I do again? Not if I got cows and a zgrzer for nothing with a man to drive it. It was relentless drawing in grass and drawing out shyte.

Bales and the better set ups hadn't really arrived at the time. If I was in that position I'd use high quality bales from that outside area for buffering the cows rather than zgrazing. Invest in a good 10 foot non condition mower and a 6 rotor Tedder would be what I'd do. Feed the bales as you would the zgrazed grass.

My neighbour agonised long and hard and finally bought one last year. A few times during the summer he was wrapping a surplus cow paddock while drawing grass from 4 miles away. This year after many pints of Guinness with him, zgrazer for sale he's measuring and taking bales on outside land. At this stage he has had no need for buffer yet and has a mountain of hi quality bales made and home waiting to be used.

My advice is dont be a slave and think bales

trixi2011

One way of doing some z grazing without the capital expenditure of a specialized machine is to mow down grass and bale without wrap draw back and feed straight to the cows. contractor round me will accommodate this work at a reasonable rate for costumers. they have a front mower on their tractor and baler behind so only one tractor used. on the other hand cows can easily walk 4km a day but your roadway would need to be good and person getting them needs to be patient and allow them to walk at their own pace

visatorro

in 2012 a good few companys started producing zero grazers and they were selling because of the wet weather. last summer and this year so far i dont think they would pay for themselves because the cows could graze away no problem. i wouldnt say there was too many sold either
i have thought about buying one here and tbh i believe it would suit my system here. as posted early the cows love it but you're goin to become a slave so it definately isnt suited to everyone. sales men will tell you whatever they can to make you purchase. i do think that walking four km is a big strain on cows thou.

kevthegaff

alot of guys around here have bought one, its a no go with my land. The grass seems to come back very quickly with good quality. My friend has one and i was asking him would italian ryegrass suit it, think he went for a hybrid afterwards

visatorro

just out of interst kev why do you say its a no go with your land?

yellow50HX

Yeah I think that a dedicated ZG might not be what you need. The idea of using the outside place for baled silage would make more sense IMO. If that were the case you could use that money to buy your own silage gear and it would do 2 jobs.

The idea of a front mounted mower and baler behind is actually a great one have seen it done a few times (2012 summer) I know a lad that used it as a ZG and he just opened the bale into the feed passage with no net and un rolled it. But you would need a tractor with front linkage and pto.

Other left field and cheap option is an old silage / double chop harvester and tow a trailer behind. Fill trailer and tip in front of the cows. Might take longer but if it's not that often might suit you during the summer months.

Zr105

The baler might sound a great idea but just bare in mind the axles aren't designed to be doing long mileage with a bale inside, especially not a freshly cut wet silage bale

mf240

Id agree with the others that suggested bales.

Panch18

Wouldn't the bales be a fair bit more costly by the time you have the wrap paid for - best part of €3 a bale

anyone ever costed it?

kevthegaff

visatorro wrote: »

just out of interst kev why do you say its a no go with your land?

theres about 100 acres you could cut in very dry weather but the rest is too hilly and in dry weather these fields are ideal for grazing next to the parlour, i have enough slurry to spread!

Tibulus

yellow50HX wrote: »

Yeah I think that a dedicated ZG might not be what you need. The idea of using the outside place for baled silage would make more sense IMO. If that were the case you could use that money to buy your own silage gear and it would do 2 jobs.

The idea of a front mounted mower and baler behind is actually a great one have seen it done a few times (2012 summer) I know a lad that used it as a ZG and he just opened the bale into the feed passage with no net and un rolled it. But you would need a tractor with front linkage and pto.

Other left field and cheap option is an old silage / double chop harvester and tow a trailer behind. Fill trailer and tip in front of the cows. Might take longer but if it's not that often might suit you during the summer months.

The idea of buying a "old" double chop harvester sounds more trouble than its worth. There are alot of bearings and moving parts in a harvester which are all potentially trouble.

The idea of buying a mower on the fronth linkage and a baler on the back is a costly one. A decent baler 2nd hand is over 10k + tractor and mower.

I would be talking with my local baling contractor sell them the idea that this will keep them busy in the slow months and that there is potential for growth within the local dairy community. Possibly mow yourslef if you have the equipment.

I would try this for a year even if I was going to buy a zero grazer. See how it fits my routine and the farm. See how cows respond, if milk soldids hold up or increase before making any major investment or increasing cow numbers.

I would expect that you would need to be P and K each year if you are operating a zero grazer and look at reseeding every few years on zero grazed ground.

I know we use an out farm solely for silage and the ground needs that TLC.

I would be interested in any studies into the effects of walking cows a for kilometers to a parlor but I cant find anything online. Surprised with the expansion in dairy next year that Teagasc or UCD haven't done any work on this.

If the milk yield decreased 1L per 1km than that would be acceptable and long as the total kg of mild solids remained the same.

Would also need to increase the culling rate of the farm to allow for removing any cows that develop lameness. She might be your most profitable cow but if she starts limping and straggling behind for that 2km walk then she would have to go.

st1979

severeoversteer wrote: »

how long would you leave between zero grazing ? could you leave it till every second day or every third?

to save the hassle of doing it everyday

No it heats very fast. Dont do more than 1 day

keep going

Panch18 wrote: »

Wouldn't the bales be a fair bit more costly by the time you have the wrap paid for - best part of €3 a bale

anyone ever costed it?

Was drawing a few bales last night so did a few calculations to keep me occupied and on rented land it came to around 20 cent a kilo depending on how you take things.that is land charge 35 days at 30euro an acre, manure 40e, mowing raking 30, baling wraping at 5 bales50e, could put in something for drawing them but to keep it simple idivided by 750kilos dm to give 20cent a kilo, maybe that shoild be 800 or more kilos which would make a big difference

Greengrass1

Is the whole idea of Z grazing to not damage the leaves? If you bale the grass or pick up with a wagoon the grass is getting beaten up and will loose all of the goodness

fastrac

Our discussion group went to see a local farmer using a Z grazer and his issue was that the grass was going from light to too heavy in a week and he was having to bale a lot in good growth conditions.We could really do with independent research on it.

Panch18

fastrac wrote: »

Our discussion group went to see a local farmer using a Z grazer and his issue was that the grass was going from light to too heavy in a week and he was having to bale a lot in good growth conditions.We could really do with independent research on it.

I don't see how that is an issue for the zero grazer?? I mean if he was grazing it wouldn't it still get strong in the week? Surely that is just the variances in growth that you get

Anyway since when is good quality bales a bad thing to have

J.O. Farmer

keep going wrote: »

Was drawing a few bales last night so did a few calculations to keep me occupied and on rented land it came to around 20 cent a kilo depending on how you take things.that is land charge 35 days at 30euro an acre, manure 40e, mowing raking 30, baling wraping at 5 bales50e, could put in something for drawing them but to keep it simple idivided by 750kilos dm to give 20cent a kilo, maybe that shoild be 800 or more kilos which would make a big difference

Would you not get a lot more dm/acre than that. Those figures would be 20% dm silage based on 5 bales an acre at 750kg per bale.

yellow50HX

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Is the whole idea of Z grazing to not damage the leaves? If you bale the grass or pick up with a wagoon the grass is getting beaten up and will loose all of the goodness

If you drop the chopper knifes in a baler it will just roll the grass up like hay. Single chop harvesters leave a long cut lenght.

keep going

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Would you not get a lot more dm/acre than that. Those figures would be 20% dm silage based on 5 bales an acre at 750kg per bale.

Open to correction on that but thinking was that this is young leafy grass and sometimes in these paddock grabs there isn't not of wilting done .if one was to assume 2500 kilos per hectare which is often about the levell these paddocks are cut , it would say that there should be 1000kilos in 5 bales so maybe im out.maybe a few good grass measureres can correct me

Greengrass1

yellow50HX wrote: »

If you drop the chopper knifes in a baler it will just roll the grass up like hay. Single chop harvesters leave a long cut lenght.

It will still get bruised and bashed with the tines and rotor that pushes the grass through knives when there up

J.O. Farmer

keep going wrote: »

Open to correction on that but thinking was that this is young leafy grass and sometimes in these paddock grabs there isn't not of wilting done .if one was to assume 2500 kilos per hectare which is often about the levell these paddocks are cut , it would say that there should be 1000kilos in 5 bales so maybe im out.maybe a few good grass measureres can correct me

Your probably right on that basis. It seemed like a very small amount of bales for such wet silage but I forgot that it would be at a height much closer to grazing than meadow.

Farmer Pudsey

I think I be talking to contractor, if feeding within a month you might get away with 3 layers instead of 4 small saving but it all counts. You also may be able to bring in a few bales with out wrapping messing but again small saving. If you can keep grass moving it will be slower to heat and late or early in the year lower temperature will allow you to feed unwrapped bales for 2-3 days,

Greengrass I do not think this grass will get damage to any great extent it will have a shorter leaf that normal silage less stem and as well only part of the sward will be hit by tines.

Finally excess bales of this quality can always be sold and you could get a good price in the 30/bale region.

mf240

If a feeling that the damage / brusing talk if at least partly fabricated by the zerograzing salesmen as a way of turing farmers off other methods.