Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

straight

I've the cows in full time now and I want to keep them milking up to mid December. They are down to 12 or 13 litres per day now. Do ye think 4 kg of nuts is too much to still make a profit from them? I'll pick out cows for drying off once they drop below 8 litres per day or 60 days before calving. Alot of cows seem to be hurting their legs inside. I'm blaming the scraper, would love to get a robot scraper some time I think.

Buford T. Justice XIX

https://twitter.com/farmersjournal/status/1326234923192213504?s=19

mahoney_j

straight wrote: »

I've the cows in full time now and I want to keep them milking up to mid December. They are down to 12 or 13 litres per day now. Do ye think 4 kg of nuts is too much to still make a profit from them? I'll pick out cows for drying off once they drop below 8 litres per day or 60 days before calving. Alot of cows seem to be hurting their legs inside. I'm blaming the scraper, would love to get a robot scraper some time I think.

13 Ltrs milk @0.40 cent possibly higher lower depending on solids =5.20 milk value 4 kg meal @25 cent a kg = 1.00

Panch18

straight wrote: »

I've the cows in full time now and I want to keep them milking up to mid December. They are down to 12 or 13 litres per day now. Do ye think 4 kg of nuts is too much to still make a profit from them? I'll pick out cows for drying off once they drop below 8 litres per day or 60 days before calving. Alot of cows seem to be hurting their legs inside. I'm blaming the scraper, would love to get a robot scraper some time I think.

What kind of area can a robot scraper cover?

How do they stack up cost wise relative to scrapers?

Gillespy

Can you do anything about the scrappers? Slow them down, run them less often maybe. Run them when milking and avoid running them when feeding. Are they stopping where they're supposed to? Have one here that doesn't, it goes up and down until it times out, stopping anywhere. Need to sort it as cows have to step over it all the time.

Water John

Lely muck robot that collects is €25K. Guy in mid west Cork got it last year along with two milking robots. Seems happy with it.

straight

Gillespy wrote: »

Can you do anything about the scrappers? Slow them down, run them less often maybe. Run them when milking and avoid running them when feeding. Are they stopping where they're supposed to? Have one here that doesn't, it goes up and down until it times out, stopping anywhere. Need to sort it as cows have to step over it all the time.

It's on every 4 hours. Working perfectly. I'd say it's more from standing on the scraper and the track, etc.. I wonder how does the robot scrapers work around when all the cows are at the feed face.

whelan2

Water John wrote: »

Lely muck robot that collects is €25K.

Cost me 25k last year including vat to get scrapers in new shed. 2 motors 4 runs.

kevthegaff

whelan2 wrote: »

Cost me 25k last year including vat to get scrapers in new shed. 2 motors 4 runs.

That was some twine, what type?

Water John

With the new Pfizer Covid vaccine having to be stored at very low temps. Farmers with AI flasks might have a nice sideline.

whelan2

kevthegaff wrote: »

That was some twine, what type?

Dairy power

Gillespy

That's about three times more than our four passage Dairymaster cost around 18 years ago. That's with one motor but still.

whelan2

Gillespy wrote: »

That's about three times more than our four passage Dairymaster cost around 18 years ago. That's with one motor but still.

They are long passages nearly 10 bays long

Mooooo

Gillespy wrote: »

Can you do anything about the scrappers? Slow them down, run them less often maybe. Run them when milking and avoid running them when feeding. Are they stopping where they're supposed to? Have one here that doesn't, it goes up and down until it times out, stopping anywhere. Need to sort it as cows have to step over it all the time.

That's just the switch behind the stopper. The service lads would have it fixed fast enough and can leave a spare with ya.
Scraper shouldn't be causing an issue with feet really. What's the floor surface and cubicles like?

straight

Mooooo wrote: »

That's just the switch behind the stopper. The service lads would have it fixed fast enough and can leave a spare with ya.
Scraper shouldn't be causing an issue with feet really. What's the floor surface and cubicles like?

Sheds are good. Always seem to get a few sore legs when they go in first. I kinda put it down to the scraper but a part of it is fighting too. It's more injured legs really. Not sore feet/hooves like.

Water John

straight wrote: »

Sheds are good. Always seem to get a few sore legs when they go in first. I kinda put it down to the scraper but a part of it is fighting too. It's more injured legs really. Not sore feet/hooves like.

A strange one, but I know one dairy farmer, excellent stockman, and he maintains that it's only cows with black hoofs go lame. He has bred it out of his herd and has no lameness.

Siamsa Sessions

Anyone have a ball-park figure for a pre-cast concrete tank?

Approx. 5,000 litres.

Related question - would 5,000 litres be the right size for a parlour washings tank for 50-ish cows?

Thanks.

Wildsurfer

whelan2 wrote: »

They are long passages nearly 10 bays long

The length wouldn't add that much to cost as it's only the track that you're paying extra for, the scrapers, motors and control panels are the same. Why did you need two motors?

The Rabbi

Wildsurfer wrote: »

The length wouldn't add that much to cost as it's only the track that you're paying extra for, the scrapers, motors and control panels are the same. Why did you need two motors?

It would probably take too long for one motor to scrape all 4 with the lenght of the passages,it would take an hour each.

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Anyone have a ball-park figure for a pre-cast concrete tank?

Approx. 5,000 litres.

Related question - would 5,000 litres be the right size for a parlour washings tank for 50-ish cows?

Thanks.

It depends more on the parlour than the cow numbers.Twelve units with jars here and no plate cooler,wash water used to washout parlour.Approx 600 litres a day.

alps

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Anyone have a ball-park figure for a pre-cast concrete tank?

Approx. 5,000 litres.

Related question - would 5,000 litres be the right size for a parlour washings tank for 50-ish cows?

Thanks.

5000litres seems very small...that's only 1100 gallons.

If I can remember, if you want to be able to spread parlour washings over the closed period, you must collect it in a tank with a 10 day capacity.

14 unit here and we would easily put through 2000 litres a day which would mean 4500/5000 gallons capacity required.

whelan2

Wildsurfer wrote: »

The length wouldn't add that much to cost as it's only the track that you're paying extra for, the scrapers, motors and control panels are the same. Why did you need two motors?

The one motor would be going all day

GrasstoMilk

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Anyone have a ball-park figure for a pre-cast concrete tank?

Approx. 5,000 litres.

Related question - would 5,000 litres be the right size for a parlour washings tank for 50-ish cows?

Thanks.

Way too little I think
We've a 4k gallon precast tank at the back of our parlour and its being knocked out of it in a few weeks to extend parlour
It's full every 7 days, piping psrlour into a new 120k gallon tank

Gawddawggonnit

It’s official (Teagasc!), Irish dairy farmers, even though receiving the lowest price in EU are achieving the highest margin!!
Yeezzz can’t deny it now!!!!

https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/news/2020/irish-dairy-sector-.php

Mooooo

Ah yes leaving out labour costs and didn't see any mention of land costs either. Still shows our coops are poor performers allround

jaymla627

Mooooo wrote: »

Ah yes leaving out labour costs and didn't see any mention of land costs either. Still shows our coops are poor performers allround

90% plant efficiency versus 61% is probably adding 2-3 cent easily on to Irish processors manufacturing costs versus mainland Europe to be fair

kevthegaff

Water John wrote: »

A strange one, but I know one dairy farmer, excellent stockman, and he maintains that it's only cows with black hoofs go lame. He has bred it out of his herd and has no lameness.

I thought it was the opposite..

Mooooo

jaymla627 wrote: »

90% plant efficiency versus 61% is probably adding 2-3 cent easily on to Irish processors manufacturing costs versus mainland Europe to be fair

Accept that but this image we're told is so great doesn't seem to make much difference when they are aiming to simply undercut instead of get a better price

dar31

kevthegaff wrote: »

I thought it was the opposite..

Me too, very rare to lift a black foot, maybe once a year, and at that the knife would want to be very sharp or it just hops off hoof.

jaymla627

Mooooo wrote: »

Accept that but this image we're told is so great doesn't seem to make much difference when they are aiming to simply undercut instead of get a better price

With the exception of kerrygold butter their isn't really any blue chip products at any great scale been produced, the spin re top quality grass fed milk is just that, tanker driver here had to change his collection days for us, as one route he was on that average lactose on the load was borderline failure, he's able to get just enough here to dilute the rest of the load enough that the milk is now processable, in all fairness the above dosent paint a great picture

mahoney_j

Mooooo wrote: »

Ah yes leaving out labour costs and didn't see any mention of land costs either. Still shows our coops are poor performers allround

Outside of west cork every other processor historically is a poor performer tegasc/ornua feed is a great story of cows out grazing clean green food low carbon footprint ,competitive advantage etc etc it’s not reflected in the price returned to the farmer that’s for sure and rather than an advantage it’s a penalty farmers on the contingent can obtain much cheaper credit ,carry multiples of our debt per cow but they survive and prosper and have a far better work/life balance than us