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

leg wax

Panch18 wrote: »

Good luck with the the cows leg wax

Are you sticking to black and white or will you cross?

Strictly Spring calving?

i will not cross myself but i might buy in some, you never see them only on dd or grasstec, yes i like my hols , need time to put up a few kgs myself.

Injuryprone

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Concrete, in the ground. The dept is an issue. It's very difficult to to vaccum the last 18 inches out. There's a slope in the yard around the tank so I'm going to have to make up a 6 inch galv pipe that comes up out of the tank and over the wall and back down to the ground (2 ft down on the low side) that I can then attach a short vac pipe to.

Would you not get covered in slurry every time you disconnect the hose from the tank when full as it won't be able to flow back to the tank? Or is there a way around that problem? I've almost the exact same setup except top of tank is 4ft above ground on low side and I've thought about doing something similar

freedominacup

Injuryprone wrote: »

Would you not get covered in slurry every time you disconnect the hose from the tank when full as it won't be able to flow back to the tank? Or is there a way around that problem? I've almost the exact same setup except top of tank is 4ft above ground on low side and I've thought about doing something similar

Install a cut off valve from a tanker close to the end of of the fixed suction pipe.

Deepsouthwest

leg wax wrote: »

i will not cross myself but i might buy in some, you never see them only on dd or grasstec, yes i like my hols , need time to put up a few kgs myself.

Not sure if u can be thinking about xbreds and buying cows doing 8500l, hard to fit both of those into the one system.

Timmaay

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Not sure if u can be thinking about xbreds and buying cows doing 8500l, hard to fit both of those into the one system.

Hmmm been managing it here last 3yrs ha. Getting tricky this year considering I scabbed on the parlour feeders and only batch feeding ha. But certainly not the biggest of challenges 2bh.

Timmaay

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUCO20OFBo3SFRlSW9wU0taYWs/view?usp=docslist_api

That is worrying, where the hell has all my milk being going so ha?

visatorro

first beef animal born here this morning in ten years. Hereford heifer.

Deepsouthwest

Timmaay wrote: »

Hmmm been managing it here last 3yrs ha. Getting tricky this year considering I scabbed on the parlour feeders and only batch feeding ha. But certainly not the biggest of challenges 2bh.

That's fair enough Tim, u started with a herd of cows, so ur working with what u got. But what I'm saying is if I was in the process of buying a herd, I'd be trying to put as uniform a bunch of cows together as possible, will make management far easier in the long term.

visatorro

Timmaay wrote: »

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxUCO20OFBo3SFRlSW9wU0taYWs/view?usp=docslist_api

That is worrying, where the hell has all my milk being going so ha?

just checked mine there aswell, its the same, no collections in six months.

whelan2

visatorro wrote: »

just checked mine there aswell, its the same, no collections in six months.

Also dont owe them anything either

Brown Podzol

Sold the bottom 25% of the incalf heifers last week. €1600. All in calf to AI. I pick them on the protein % and calving interval of their maternal line. Happens to coincide with their EBI. Still leaves me with with a potential 4.4 stocking rate so will be selling late calvers.

leg wax

Brown Podzol wrote: »

Sold the bottom 25% of the incalf heifers last week. €1600. All in calf to AI. I pick them on the protein % and calving interval of their maternal line. Happens to coincide with their EBI. Still leaves me with with a potential 4.4 stocking rate so will be selling late calvers.

how many did you sell.

Buford T. Justice XIX

whelan2 wrote: »

Also dont owe them anything either

That's a good trade off for the year that's coming:)

whelan2

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

That's a good trade off for the year that's coming:)

A lad a few miles from here went to strathroy in the last few weeks. He didn't sign the milk supply agreement. He is the first local lad to go. Will be interesting to see how he gets on

visatorro

whelan2 wrote: »

A lad a few miles from here went to strathroy in the last few weeks. He didn't sign the milk supply agreement. He is the first local lad to go. Will be interesting to see how he gets on

farmers in England selling milk without a contract for 14 pence.

Brown Podzol

leg wax wrote: »

how many did you sell.

12. Normally sell a few more but 13% cows empty this year.

RightTurnClyde

With no young stock on the milking platform or no silage getting cut off the mp and Cows getting 800kgs of meal. Growing say 12-13 ton. What SR would be comfortable.???? Cows would be a HF X BF type cow

Deepsouthwest

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

With no young stock on the milking platform or no silage getting cut off the mp and Cows getting 800kgs of meal. Growing say 12-13 ton. What SR would be comfortable.???? Cows would be a HF X BF type cow

Is it a dry farm? What part of the country are u in? Have u enough outside ground for replacement stock and silage, or will have to rent ground if u up SR on MP?

RightTurnClyde

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Is it a dry farm? What part of the country are u in? Have u enough outside ground for replacement stock and silage, or will have to rent ground if u up SR on MP?

Dry farm, south Tipp. Have outside ground for some of the silage and can get balance (what ever is needed) of silage ground from contract rearer. So no young stock or silage coming off mp. But can buy as much silage ground as I need from contract rearer. Iykwim.

Deepsouthwest

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Dry farm, south Tipp. Have outside ground for some of the silage and can get balance (what ever is needed) of silage ground from contract rearer. So no young stock or silage coming off mp. But can buy as much silage ground as I need from contract rearer. Iykwim.

anything over 3 and ull need all ur ducks in a row. 3.3 here last yr and did fine, wettish farm so don't normally get cattle out too early,early March and nearly April before they went out full time. But plenty grass right through til early Nov, of course the weather helped. Will go for 4 this yr, which I know is on the high side, but will cut back if it becomes uneconomical.
It's easy to keep rising SR, but it's trying to do it profitably without spend all the xtra income on bought in feed is where it's really at.

wats the craic

visatorro wrote: »

farmers in England selling milk without a contract for 14 pence.

well the current strathroy price is 26.5 cent plus vat . our contract is a rolling 5yr contract its a no brainer imo

RightTurnClyde

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

It's easy to keep rising SR, but it's trying to do it profitably without spend all the xtra income on bought in feed is where it's really at.

Agreed, that's what I'm trying to get to. What's the ideal sweet spot. Place is dry here, usually out on 1st of Feb and this year out till 5th of Dec during the day.
Stocked at 2.8 atm on the mp that includes all heifer calves and most silage coming from mp. Place under no real pressure this year, but it was an exceptional year for grass.
Two things that struck me this year were
1, whilst getting the cows out in Feb is a top priority, I'd be more than happy to bring them in early in November rather than trying to get heavy in calf cows to walk long distances in bad weather conditions and then try to get 17-18 litres out of them. This year cows started loosing condition late Nov on grass by day, silage by night and 3kgs meal and a lot of walking. Now they're gaining condition again on pit silage + 3kgs meal and are holding at 16 litres
2, there were 2 cuts of 45+ acres each taken off mp, plus spent the summer messing with bales off the mp. Seems like a waste of ground around the parlour for the sake of some simple supplementary feeding (something like a pitted beet and hulls) in Feb and Mar. By this I mean move up the SR to match the summer peak grass a bit better.

Timmaay

RTC, you'll manage 3.3 without too much sweat if you shift the silage off the main block, it will probably mean buffer feeding more leafy silage on the shoulders to the milkers , if it doesn't cost you a fortune in infrastructure or extra labour then it's a no brainer to drive on, the extra milk will nicely dilute your fixed costs.

mf240

At 3.3 here on a wettish farm. Was grand this year. Was like faulty towers in 2012.

Greengrass1

Moving to 2.7 here next yr on milk block uo grom 2/ha this yr.
Will be up to 3.4 when first cut is locked up.
Ultimately plan is to stock all land around parlour to 3.5 or so
2.6 over all next yr

jack o shea

Are those hand yard scrapers with wheels any good lads or would they break ur back?

Deepsouthwest

jack o shea wrote: »

Are those hand yard scrapers with wheels any good lads or would they break ur back?

They're grand for a collecting yard, or anywhere u need to clean a big area, but no good if there's a lot of slurry or if the area isn't v smooth

whelan2

jack o shea wrote: »

Are those hand yard scrapers with wheels any good lads or would they break ur back?

fecked the one i had into the ditch

stretch film

jack o shea wrote: »

Are those hand yard scrapers with wheels any good lads or would they break ur back?

Useless in dry weather

Timmaay

A rule of thumb of mine, for any tool on the farm that I need to even consider the question will this be a back breaking job, I will try to find another way about doing it. Total waste of time, effort and of course potentially your health.