Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

Dawggone

Update EU dairy crisis meeting on Monday.

The French and Germans are now pushing hard for temporary reduction across the EU. The fact that states like Ireland could pump out milk while France reduces supply isn't going down well...


At this stage I think the politicians should leave well alone and see the whites of the eyes of the different producing regions. The only problem with that is small producers will go...

yosemitesam1

Dawggone wrote: »

The crop was planted as pure crimson clover but it now has about 15 or 20% wild ryegrass. It should test, if properly conserved, at around 22 - 24% protein. From experience this is almost impossible to conserve...the first time I pitted this it ended up in the dung heap.

I tried to source some molasses yesterday and it's expensive, so I'm thinking on making wraps now and using lots of plastic. Getting a good wilt would be easy if I could ted it out, but that's not possible with clover as the leaves would be lost. Maybe just leave it for an extra or two after cutting?




'10-10-20 down the spout'...showing your age there Free!

Could you apply acid on the pit or mix in a bit of beet pulp?

pedigree 6

whelan2 wrote: »

Had a farmer ring me late last night for a bottle of magnesium. He's a suckler farmer

I wonder do many farmers give minerals to cows before breeding?
I'm about to order boluses for the cows that should do them for breeding and the summer. They get calmag in the meal already but I find if they don't eat their meal they're still getting it from the bolus.
It won't stop them getting tetany but they don't get it as bad.

blackdog1

Dawggone wrote: »

The crop was planted as pure crimson clover but it now has about 15 or 20% wild ryegrass. It should test, if properly conserved, at around 22 - 24% protein. From experience this is almost impossible to conserve...the first time I pitted this it ended up in the dung heap.

I tried to source some molasses yesterday and it's expensive, so I'm thinking on making wraps now and using lots of plastic. Getting a good wilt would be easy if I could ted it out, but that's not possible with clover as the leaves would be lost. Maybe just leave it for an extra or two after cutting?




'10-10-20 down the spout'...showing your age there Free!

We use this for silage and wholecrop and have great results. http://www.agriking.com/silo-king

Milked out

Dawggone wrote: »

The crop was planted as pure crimson clover but it now has about 15 or 20% wild ryegrass. It should test, if properly conserved, at around 22 - 24% protein. From experience this is almost impossible to conserve...the first time I pitted this it ended up in the dung heap.

I tried to source some molasses yesterday and it's expensive, so I'm thinking on making wraps now and using lots of plastic. Getting a good wilt would be easy if I could ted it out, but that's not possible with clover as the leaves would be lost. Maybe just leave it for an extra or two after cutting?




'10-10-20 down the spout'...showing your age there Free!

Could you use the roller type conditioner when mowing? Think it's designed for clover it's on the lely website anyway.

jaymla627

Dawggone wrote: »

Update EU dairy crisis meeting on Monday.

The French and Germans are now pushing hard for temporary reduction across the EU. The fact that states like Ireland could pump out milk while France reduces supply isn't going down well...


At this stage I think the politicians should leave well alone and see the whites of the eyes of the different producing regions. The only problem with that is small producers will go...

Thinking back to 09 America brought in a herd retirement program that subsidised culling dairy cows from your herd, it worked a treat with an extra half a million dairy cows been slaughtered that year, could be the perfect solution once a good sub per cow was payed out...
Would be a 1000 times more effective then simply trying to impose temporary quotas as your removing the cow entirely from the system and also the replacement dairy stock she might of produced

whelan2

is everyone's Glanbia connect down or just mine?

Panch18

jaymla627 wrote: »

Thinking back to 09 America brought in a herd retirement program that subsidised culling dairy cows from your herd, it worked a treat with an extra half a million dairy cows been slaughtered that year, could be the perfect solution once a good sub per cow was payed out...
Would be a 1000 times more effective then simply trying to impose temporary quotas as your removing the cow entirely from the system and also the replacement dairy stock she might of produced

And screwing the price of beef in the process!!!

keep going

jaymla627 wrote: »

Thinking back to 09 America brought in a herd retirement program that subsidised culling dairy cows from your herd, it worked a treat with an extra half a million dairy cows been slaughtered that year, could be the perfect solution once a good sub per cow was payed out...
Would be a 1000 times more effective then simply trying to impose temporary quotas as your removing the cow entirely from the system and also the replacement dairy stock she might of produced

Right plan but it would never sell in europe with animal lovers

jaymla627

Panch18 wrote: »

And screwing the price of beef in the process!!!

Would be neglibale enough given cows lads would be off - loading would be the crap of the herd and not prime beef culls, could have a positive effect for beef down the line too as less males will be entering the system in a few years time from dairy herds....

jaymla627

whelan2 wrote: »

is everyone's Glanbia connect down or just mine?

Down here aswell, milk cheque is in account so not to worried haha

jaymla627

einn32 wrote: »

I visited a guy milking over 200 cows in south east Victoria a month back. He just bought land and was looking to push to 300 eventually. He made the same point about high leverage. He said it gets him up in the mornings! It's a different way of looking at things.

Lots of ways of looking at things alright, my old boss sold out his farm out their last month due to debt issues nearly owed what his farm was worth in bank loans was farming 1200 cows across two farms another guy beside him similar set-up sold out to a Chinese group also debt levels where sky high too....
Second guy was a top class operator who I had a good chat to about all things dairying and debt levels his take on it was as the years went on and he kept on expanding/buying ground also has another 1200 cow herd in another region he was simply eroding his equity that he had built up when he had payed off his first farm that had been bought cheap in the 80's....
Once your comfortable with losing control of all your assets to a bank I'd say fire away, but with the current outlook for milk I get up a lot easier in the mornings knowing the bank manager in town hasn't the deeds to the farm and my dangly bits in his hand

whelan2

jaymla627 wrote: »

Down here aswell, milk cheque is in account so not to worried haha

ye thats the main thing, just wanted to see my milk statement

Muckit

jaymla627 wrote: »

.....I get up a lot easier in the mornings knowing the bank manager in town hasn't the deeds to the farm and my dangly bits in his hand

Eewww ! ☺

Milked out

What would ye make of this for grass.
Maize 23%
Barley 20%
Sugar beet pulp 20%
Maize distillers 20
Hipro soya 8%
Molasses 3%
Vit and min 6%
Would come to 14.5% p 30% starch and an NDF of 31.2%
Would be feeding 4kgs,, no quotes yet.

freedominacup

Milked out wrote: »

What would ye make of this for grass.
Maize 23%
Barley 20%
Sugar beet pulp 20%
Maize distillers 20
Hipro soya 8%
Molasses 3%
Vit and min 6%
Would come to 14.5% p 30% starch and an NDF of 31.2%
Would be feeding 4kgs,, no quotes yet.

On the money formulation wise. Just down to cost now. Only thing is cost difference between sbp and soya hulls. Hulls wouldn't be much of a compromise if they were cheaper.

freedominacup

Dawggone wrote: »

The crop was planted as pure crimson clover but it now has about 15 or 20% wild ryegrass. It should test, if properly conserved, at around 22 - 24% protein. From experience this is almost impossible to conserve...the first time I pitted this it ended up in the dung heap.

I tried to source some molasses yesterday and it's expensive, so I'm thinking on making wraps now and using lots of plastic. Getting a good wilt would be easy if I could ted it out, but that's not possible with clover as the leaves would be lost. Maybe just leave it for an extra or two after cutting?




'10-10-20 down the spout'...showing your age there Free!

You're trying to stop a butyric fermetation. Acid is what you need. Basically you've a huge amount of N floating around. Would one of those mowers which are spreading a 2.5m cut over 2.2m help? Will the clover cope with being raked? The best solution for high N is high dm.

Dawggone

jaymla627 wrote: »

Lots of ways of looking at things alright, my old boss sold out his farm out their last month due to debt issues nearly owed what his farm was worth in bank loans was farming 1200 cows across two farms another guy beside him similar set-up sold out to a Chinese group also debt levels where sky high too....
Second guy was a top class operator who I had a good chat to about all things dairying and debt levels his take on it was as the years went on and he kept on expanding/buying ground also has another 1200 cow herd in another region he was simply eroding his equity that he had built up when he had payed off his first farm that had been bought cheap in the 80's....
Once your comfortable with losing control of all your assets to a bank I'd say fire away, but with the current outlook for milk I get up a lot easier in the mornings knowing the bank manager in town hasn't the deeds to the farm and my dangly bits in his hand

There's good debt and bad debt...


I've never given a bank deeds of property.

Dawggone

freedominacup wrote: »

You're trying to stop a butyric fermetation. Acid is what you need. Basically you've a huge amount of N floating around. Would one of those mowers which are spreading a 2.5m cut over 2.2m help? Will the clover cope with being raked? The best solution for high N is high dm.

Any 'expert' I've spoken to in the last few days have been trying to sell me something...
I'm going to cut with the Kuhn 3.5m
flat bed mowers and allow to dry for 3days, rake and bale with 32wraps of plastic.

Good advice. Thanks Free.

kowtow

jaymla627 wrote:

Thinking back to 09 America brought in a herd retirement program that subsidised culling dairy cows from your herd, it worked a treat with an extra half a million dairy cows been slaughtered that year, could be the perfect solution once a good sub per cow was payed out... Would be a 1000 times more effective then simply trying to impose temporary quotas as your removing the cow entirely from the system and also the replacement dairy stock she might of produced

Sensible route that.

But i wonder in Ireland if that might not end up increasing the price of heifers faster than the price of milk.

If it were up to me before trying to manipulate supply I'd suggest legislating to pay a large chunk of senior salaries in first purchasers and coops in the form of litres of milk (virtual litres) to be cashed in at the average price of the most recent quarter.

There's a recent precedent for this, after 2008 EU legislation forced big parts of bankers bonuses into so called coco bonds - continent convertibles - which lose their value rapidly if the banks balance sheet (ie. The customer's money) is threatened. It's an interesting way of aligning the interests of the bankers with those of its suppliers, sorry retail customers.

I can imagine a few cries of 'endangered investment' but I suspect that the investments most endangered would be those parked outside the houses of overpaid executives.

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

Sensible route that.

But i wonder in Ireland if that might not end up increasing the price of heifers faster than the price of milk.

If it were up to me before trying to manipulate supply I'd suggest legislating to pay a large chunk of senior salaries in first purchasers and coops in the form of litres of milk (virtual litres) to be cashed in at the average price of the most recent quarter.

There's a recent precedent for this, after 2008 EU legislation forced big parts of bankers bonuses into so called coco bonds - continent convertibles - which lose their value rapidly if the banks balance sheet (ie. The customer's money) is threatened. It's an interesting way of aligning the interests of the bankers with those of its suppliers, sorry retail customers.

I can imagine a few cries of 'endangered investment' but I suspect that the investments most endangered would be those parked outside the houses of overpaid executives.

Nice solution.

It could work. I also think that the direct solution of slaughtering of thousands of cows would rather sharpen the minds of the non farming community...

kowtow

Dawggone wrote:

It could work. I also think that the direct solution of slaughtering of thousands of cows would rather sharpen the minds of the non farming community...

The problem for Ireland is that restricting supply will make no difference without a liquid market to respond to the trigger.

What Ireland needs is other countries to restrict supplies down to the level of local consumption so that they stop exporting.

Other countries could be forgiven for not seeing things this way, or indeed not wishing to subsidise irish production indirectly or otherwise. We are - like NZ - speculators in global milk markets and loss taking comes with the territory.

But it goes without saying that as much as we are speculative global farmers our processors are party to the same bet as we are. If they are not feeling it as hard as we are we've set things up wrong.

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

The problem for Ireland is that restricting supply will make no difference without a liquid market to respond to the trigger.

What Ireland needs is other countries to restrict supplies down to the level of local consumption so that they stop exporting.

Other countries could be forgiven for not seeing things this way, or indeed not wishing to subsidise irish production indirectly or otherwise. We are - like NZ - speculators in global milk markets and loss taking comes with the territory.

But it goes without saying that as much as we are speculative global farmers our processors are party to the same bet as we are. If they are not feeling it as hard as we are we've set things up wrong.

Indeed.
I think this is why the French think that reducing supply will help short term.

It's like there are two very distinct markets...the local 'liquid' market and the global market.

Irish processors (and suppliers) have bought in to this market. That's fine until you hit the inevitable wall that is happening now. These troughs/walls/collapses are guaranteed in that market, and even more pronounced in commodity cycle lows.

It's time to rethink policy going forward. Otherwise this will keep recurring on a regular basis.
The global dairy market is always going to be a rough sailing for those that depend on it.

kowtow

Absolutely right.

It's interesting to see the NZ press beginning to question their 'decision' to bet on commodity milk now.

There's a valid argument that the average milk price will eventually reach equilibrium at a point perhaps a third of the way (by volume) between the cheapest global litre and the most expensive, because that's the way commodity markets function.

From the eu / irish point of view this raises some interesting discussion points.

1. Is liquid milk a commodity at all? If not do we disregard liquid litres in EU when considering global supply + cost. Is the surplus milk of a liquid nation more expensive or less expensive to produce than the overall COP for that nation? - are an English farmers marginal litres for the powder market and expensive waste or cheaper than we could ever produce (bearing in mind that his liquid supply is his primary business).

2. If markets are going to settle say 30% above the cheapest COP by volume where do we fit in with labour and land included as it surely must be. Commodity markets regulate supply by destroying the most expensive producers, all the time, every time.

3. If oil and feed remain in the doldrums in the medium term does that change Irelands relative COP materially from what was factored in to harvest 2020 calculations?

You can farm milk, or you can mine it, and for better or worse Ireland has chosen the latter. It's more important than ever to really understand cost of production on a volume / comparative basis.

Dawggone

Good points Kt.

So if my milk here in France is going to the home liquid market it shouldn't be factored into the global commodity market? Therefore, liquid and commodity milk are essentially two completely different products because they go to two different markets?
I'd have to agree with that.

The Irish CoP is clouded by many factors...the fact that land has been inherited so it's taken as 'free'...the lack of control of house building has the unique phrase 'road frontage' which comes in handy in troubled times like now...family labour on farm...merchant credit...complete lack of nitrate regulation etc.

oxjkqg

cows out by day yesterday, covers are slack but damage was minimal, ohhhh the feeling of getting them out such a sense of relief

einn32

jaymla627 wrote: »

Lots of ways of looking at things alright, my old boss sold out his farm out their last month due to debt issues nearly owed what his farm was worth in bank loans was farming 1200 cows across two farms another guy beside him similar set-up sold out to a Chinese group also debt levels where sky high too....
Second guy was a top class operator who I had a good chat to about all things dairying and debt levels his take on it was as the years went on and he kept on expanding/buying ground also has another 1200 cow herd in another region he was simply eroding his equity that he had built up when he had payed off his first farm that had been bought cheap in the 80's....
Once your comfortable with losing control of all your assets to a bank I'd say fire away, but with the current outlook for milk I get up a lot easier in the mornings knowing the bank manager in town hasn't the deeds to the farm and my dangly bits in his hand

This guy had a real tidy operation but the flip side was his level of debt which seemed high to me. I guess he couldnt resist buying the farm bounding him. Also he might have got up in the morning for milking but his wife had to milk at PM, he was burnt out from work which impacted his health. He was looking to exit in 1 to 2 years.

Worked near a few cropping farms bought by Arabs and Chinese in Western Australia. I'm sure it'sa trend that will continue.

mahoney_j

Dawggone wrote: »

Good points Kt.

So if my milk here in France is going to the home liquid market it shouldn't be factored into the global commodity market? Therefore, liquid and commodity milk are essentially two completely different products because they go to two different markets?
I'd have to agree with that.

The Irish CoP is clouded by many factors...the fact that land has been inherited so it's taken as 'free'...the lack of control of house building has the unique phrase 'road frontage' which comes in handy in troubled times like now...family labour on farm...merchant credit...complete lack of nitrate regulation etc.

Complete lack of nitrate regulations .......sure we have derogation for that now dwag and road frontage and quota ,many a good wedding made by that!!!

yosemitesam1

freedominacup wrote: »

You're trying to stop a butyric fermetation. Acid is what you need. Basically you've a huge amount of N floating around. Would one of those mowers which are spreading a 2.5m cut over 2.2m help? Will the clover cope with being raked? The best solution for high N is high dm.

That could turn into mouldy sh1te with a heavy wilt its very different to grass. Grass would have 15-20% wsc and need 5-7% for a good fermentation, legumes would probably need 12-15% wsc because of their buffering capacity but only start with under 10%, a heavy wilt will only make that worse and allow the protein to degrade since there won't be any nitrate problem to get rid of there's no advantage to a heavy wilt, acid or fuel for the bacteria to make acid only solution imo

freedominacup

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

That could turn into mouldy sh1te with a heavy wilt its very different to grass. Grass would have 15-20% wsc and need 5-7% for a good fermentation, legumes would probably need 12-15% wsc because of their buffering capacity but only start with under 10%, a heavy wilt will only make that worse and allow the protein to degrade since there won't be any nitrate problem to get rid of there's no advantage to a heavy wilt, acid or fuel for the bacteria to make acid only solution imo

I thought the high protein would be an indicator of high N that's where my thinking on the wilt came in. The percentages you refer to are they fm or dm? If fresh surely those percentages will rise as crop dries?

Edit: What gives them such a high buffering capacity?