Green Cert Diary Help

MinkeyMonkey

Hi lads, I know the question of the Green Cert Diary has come up before but I'm struggling with mine. I haven't grown up farming. It's something I'm very new to. I'm doing my work experience on a small suckler beef farm and there's very little going on there right now. Other than the 3 animals that calved over the past few weeks, there's nothing much else happening. I know I have to pad out my diary, and I know I'll have to make stuff up but as I'm a complete novice at this it's really hard to fabricate. So far all I have some up with are...

• Put down rat poison
• Bought new farm pup
• Counted Bales
• Replaced foot bath
• Fixed gate
• Tap leaking

I realise these are not great but I'm looking for padding please if anyone can help I'd appreciate it! Particularly with tasks that require planning one week, carrying out the next and reporting on a third.

Thanks lads!!

SuperTortoise

We were told we did'nt have to stick with things going on at this time of year, we could write about making silage, dosing cows, spreading slurry, measuring grass, weighing cattle, selling cattle etc just have it dated alright eg. you won't be spreading slurry in December!

Sugarbowl

Just some ideas off hand... Dosing, treatment for lice, cow with mastitis, monitoring cows pre calving, putting fresh bedding down for calves, tagging the calf, dropping off your bvd sample to the pick-up point, register your calf, calf sick/not sucking, monitoring grass growth, deciding when is the best time to leave the cows out to grass, deciding what fertiliser to order , go fencing, check existing fences etc etc etc
There is actually so much to talk about when you think outside the box. I've been in your boots and used to hate the padding of the diary as well. It was worth it though and I scored well on it. Just think of all the small details when carrying out a task and you would not be long filling the gaps.
Best of luck with it!

L1985

Have one animal with a reoccurring illness-that dragged mine on for a bit like a calf with crypto or something. Also there is always fencing to be done you can go into detail on that which field etc. Tractor maintenance every couple of weeks, moving animals into different fields, pens etc. Good luck with it it's a pain!!!
Actually sugar bowl covered off most of it there to be fair!!

MinkeyMonkey

Thanks very much! That should get me going anyway. I've been making little notes myself on the bits and pieces that are ACTUALLY happening but I'm fairly sure they wouldn't fill a diary week page...and I've 7 weeks to write up. It's not that I haven't been doing it all along, it's just that it's all so repetitive that I'm sure they wouldn't be happy with actual facts!

Muckit

Don't forget to take a copy of the first dairy so that you'll have bits for the 2nd one.

endainoz

The diary by nature is going to be repetitive, as long as you fill up the paragraphs with stuff such as fed cattle, fixed stone wall, went to machinery show or beef plan talk anything like that to fill it up will be fine.

Our instructor told us that they don't check every single diary when correcting anyways. I think like 5 out of out class of 30+ were checked. That being said no harm to have things right either.

PoorFarmer

Mostly covered in the posts above to be fair. Dont worry about being repetitive because in reality you will be doing the same stuff over and over. The daily grind of cleaning feeding and observing the animals is every bit as important as the extras. Fences, water, walking paddocks etc is about as much as you can do these days anyway

Muckit

Clean drinkers in shed daily.
Put in silage bales or push in silage.
Check all animals are eating or lying off chewing cud. No dropped ears or snotty noses.
All repetitive but v important and crucial.

Lady Haywire

It's the basics I keep forgetting about putting down. Like putting in the bales, checking for anything a bit 'off' or dirt in drinkers. Cause it's stuff I do almost unconsciously at this stage!
I just put down in week 2 what our basic feeding was- 4kg to bulls at 19% & 2kg to heifers at 17%, then x minerals and iodine. Then refer back to that at the start of each page saying 'Feeding same as Week 2 ratio', then put in other random stuff cause random stuff always happens here. :pac:
First cow is due in a fortnight so hopefully we'll have a bit more interesting stuff then. I've priced fertiliser, paid vets bill, looked at powerwashers, cleaned the medicine cabinet & disposed of out of date stuff in the correct manner, booked vet for stuff. X cow is on the cull list for X reason, X is in isolation for something else. Sure it all adds up! Ordered a few straws off Progressive even though i actually did that in summer.
Fecking cows have broken two barrier partitions since i started it so got some welding in too :D


I actually ran out of space a couple of times so I'll just put that stuff in at other times.

Say my name

And to think I did my placement with a dairy farmer/contractor.
Milking at 7 and back at the house some nights at 11 from wrapping.
The book was never empty with work.

And this was supposed to be an easy placement. Loved every minute of it.

Yous are spoilt nowadays!!

Muckit

You could stay rooting and boll**in all day at beef too, but it wouldn't pay you! But you'd have plenty for the diary!!!!

MinkeyMonkey

Lady Haywire wrote: »

It's the basics I keep forgetting about putting down. Like putting in the bales, checking for anything a bit 'off' or dirt in drinkers. Cause it's stuff I do almost unconsciously at this stage!
I just put down in week 2 what our basic feeding was- 4kg to bulls at 19% & 2kg to heifers at 17%, then x minerals and iodine. Then refer back to that at the start of each page saying 'Feeding same as Week 2 ratio', then put in other random stuff cause random stuff always happens here. :pac:
First cow is due in a fortnight so hopefully we'll have a bit more interesting stuff then. I've priced fertiliser, paid vets bill, looked at powerwashers, cleaned the medicine cabinet & disposed of out of date stuff in the correct manner, booked vet for stuff. X cow is on the cull list for X reason, X is in isolation for something else. Sure it all adds up! Ordered a few straws off Progressive even though i actually did that in summer.
Fecking cows have broken two barrier partitions since i started it so got some welding in too :D


I actually ran out of space a couple of times so I'll just put that stuff in at other times.

I don't even know what this bit below means!!

"I just put down in week 2 what our basic feeding was- 4kg to bulls at 19% & 2kg to heifers at 17%, then x minerals and iodine. Then refer back to that at the start of each page saying 'Feeding same as Week 2 rations"

But I appreciate the feedback all the same!!

I'm really trying to get as much as I can out of this course because, as I mentioned originally, I'm a newbie but a lot of it is going over my head. Every day's a school day as they say!

MinkeyMonkey

Muckit wrote: »

Don't forget to take a copy of the first dairy so that you'll have bits for the 2nd one.

I'm typing it up first so that I can move any random jobs around as needed from week to week to fill up space (and because my handwriting is atrocious and I hate trying to read back over it!). So I'll have it all saved but good advice!!

Lady Haywire

MinkeyMonkey wrote: »

I don't even know what this bit below means!!

"I just put down in week 2 what our basic feeding was- 4kg to bulls at 19% & 2kg to heifers at 17%, then x minerals and iodine. Then refer back to that at the start of each page saying 'Feeding same as Week 2 rations"

But I appreciate the feedback all the same!!

I'm really trying to get as much as I can out of this course because, as I mentioned originally, I'm a newbie but a lot of it is going over my head. Every day's a school day as they say!

Apologies, it's the protein % in the ration. I'm an atrocious writer at the best of times & sometimes my typing doesn't even make sense as i do it very fast!
I'm guessing as you're on a small suckler farm they're not on any ration right now. Do they get anything in summer for the weanlings or anything given to them before calving like oats or minerals?

MinkeyMonkey wrote: »

I'm typing it up first so that I can move any random jobs around as needed from week to week to fill up space (and because my handwriting is atrocious and I hate trying to read back over it!). So I'll have it all saved but good advice!!

You're doing better than me so, I just blather on with whatever comes into my head so it's one long stream of consciousness that may not make sense by the end of the paragraph

MinkeyMonkey

Sorry to bother you again lads but I'm just back from a course day where we were told that we need more details. Particularly in the Enterprise Checks part of it. I put down factory prices every week but in reality they're really not relevant, we're not sending anything to the factory. We don't weigh animals either and I don't know anything about grass walks which was something someone else suggested. I've made up grass growth rates (which could be WAY off!) but otherwise, I've nothing!

SuperTortoise

Trips to the mart to check on prices, discussion group meetings, getting quotations for bag manure, grass measuring, research on current and possible future price for beef in factories, condition scoring your cattle, farm accounts, ...

_Brian

Great time of the year to get out and walk fences in preparation for stock going out. Always branches and stuff blown down in recent wind on electric fences, steaks to be replaced.

Fert spreader will get dragged out from back of store, bitta grease and oil.