Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

JustJoe7240

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122692469#Comment_122692469

That's a pretty bizarre conclusion to come to tbh.

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122692746#Comment_122692746

Easier isn't always better. Ya these couple of weeks is a bit of a struggle, but also was Feb Mar Apr this year. If they ain't rotavating, il let my own out. I often see that the harm done in October is fixed by spring. The damage done in March, affects the year

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122692403#Comment_122692403

The only laugh is on lads giving 160 plus acre and they wonder why they aint making money..local contractors are price fixing at the start of each year if they want 200 farmers will still pay or look further a field and get 1st cut in june.pipeing slurry is anothe robbing outing lads charging for rolling out pipes.

cjpm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122692959#Comment_122692959

If you think that fellas should be rolling out pipes for free don’t be too surprised when they start “mouthing at you”

I’d say it’s less of a case of you giving contractors the road and more of a case of them saying I’ll do the work for a decent fella instead.

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122693254#Comment_122693254

Theres lads begging me for work i pay out the gate not like sum lads who cant cus there paying 400 acre rent.500 acre to harvest crop x 3cuts slurry back it doesnt take long to see whos the man making money

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122693294#Comment_122693294

You aren't related to Donald trump by any way. Sometimes you make a lot of sense and then get completely carried away.

Keep up the posts, its a bit of crack anyway

I actually agree, a penny saved is a penny earned. It's very easy to be a "progressive" farmer, And paying out more than coming in.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122692909#Comment_122692909

It's Obvious the lads on dry ground are running a different system. I calve in Feb here and any day grazing before paddy's day is a bonus. I will never run out of grass in spring. Get the slurry out in January and there is lovely grass come March. Leave covers after me in autumn and they disappear with the frost and get slurry spread on them. It's a case of take a day at grass any day you can get it here. Also I'm stocked at 2 cows/Ha on the milking block at the moment.

I agree with lads about it being easier having the cows in. I could stay in bed for a half hour longer in the morning.

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122692746#Comment_122692746

Some of us love hardship.

dairyedge

I rather cows kept out late then put out early in dire weather just after calving. What good was early grass last spring when cows were looking out at it from the shed and this rotational planner nonsense’s of having x percentage of the farm grazed by a certain date and having to start the final rotation now or god forbid. I start when I bloody well like and so should everybody else.

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122695713#Comment_122695713

there was no cows out late and none out early this years. We had them in full time on the 20th of October

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122695713#Comment_122695713

this post and the amount of likes it has just shows the exactly the lack of understanding around grassland management that there still actually is out there

Lengthing out the rotation to 40 days from October 1st is all about creating a wedge for the spring grazing. And in turn making sure you have grass for the spring. Following a rotation planner for the spring is also about building a wedge for the 2nd round.
I see it happening in lots of places. Lads skim the place keeping cows out till late November, the grass has no energy reserves the Heading into winter because it’s after been grazed bare so often, then they don’t have covers enough to offer cows a set area /day in spring so they can’t let them out and have to feed a pile of shite silage to hold them in or they just let them off in the whole paddock and have the place grazed by paddies day

My father and many more like him would have ran the farm exactly like that and it was one of the biggest reasons why we did low milk solids and were always running out of silage. When I started putting my stamp on the place and started doing a spring and autumn rotation it changed things an unbelievable amount.

I understand ppl on wetter farms have good reason to skin the place in autumn because they get out a lot later in spring but there’s no excuse for anyone on drier farms to be skimming the place and then no grass to let cows out till March

We’ll finish up grazing here by early November I would say so we have grass for spring and we can get cows out by day from Feb first

whelan2

Yes it works well for you on a dry farm. It's the same every year, ye get caught with the drought and we get caught with the wet

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696136#Comment_122696136

He just doesn't get that he's farming boys ground in a boys environment even where they are based is a complete micro climate in comparison to the surrounding areas.

farisfat

Great post wet or dry farm doesn't make any difference.

The proper infrastructure in place ie roads and you can manage late autumn and early spring grazing me

We have a heavy farm and we always graze the first week of Feb and cows aren't housed fulltime till mid nov.

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696111#Comment_122696111

will you pull the plug on the zero grazing on the same date as grazing stops or will you continue til cows are dried off??

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696287#Comment_122696287

That Is not a wet farm. Or else the farm is black after each grazing

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122695713#Comment_122695713

The spring rotation planner helps to minimise the amount of silage cut on the home place and sets up the grazing for the year.all it means if you don't follow it some way is you make more silage .not the end of the world.we generally have the home place grazed for 15 april and that kinda sets us for the year which suits us as we are grazing everything at home and dont make any silage on the home base not even surplus bales..the whole thing depends on land type, rainfall and stocking rate.i sometimes i think we forget its all about feeding cows.good grass is way better than silage but wet grass especially over a few days can leave cows very hungry .is it not better in spring and autumn to offer the cows some grass,some silage and some ration every day to allow for changing weather conditions than to be all grass one week and all silage the next week which I think is better for cows stomachs which are the engine of the whole thing.

whelan2

It was May this year before we got properly going at grazing

farisfat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696297#Comment_122696297

Heavy black ground in the northwest with high rainfall.Black but not poached with proper allocation.

Wildsurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696287#Comment_122696287

You saying there's no difference between a wet or dry farm at shoulders of year makes me think your farm isn't quite as 'heavy' as you Imagine.

farisfat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696321#Comment_122696321

Their is a difference, but with the proper infacstructure and management anything is possible.

The biggest obstacle of all is probably mindset.

farisfat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696310#Comment_122696310

Same here but we were into our third round

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696277#Comment_122696277

I well get it. I know ppl on wetter farms have to do it a bit different. We’re not all on wet farms

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696338#Comment_122696338

Stop good lad your only going to show yourself up as one of the polluters

GrasstoMilk

I would if I had the grass and ground conditions are favourable.
i reseeded 30 acres in last week of august and that’s done a job on grass supplies

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696294#Comment_122696294

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696338#Comment_122696338

If you can't even walk in a field yourself without getting stuck there's no point grazing it

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696287#Comment_122696287

whats your stocking rate on the grazing ground you have available to you around the parlour for the cows?

yewdairy

The principal of the spring rotation planner is spot on. Paddocks grazed early in the year grow more grass and better quality in later rotations.

Just tweak it for your farm, don't finish 1st round until mid April here and will always have periods in spring when cows are rehoused. Grazing conditions can often be better in February than April.

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696287#Comment_122696287

wet or dry does make a difference… if you get a drought like 2018… not ideal but at least the cows wont poach the ground… and when the rain comes grass will come back… but if land is wet and you are heavily stocked… cows will do harm… one very good farmer admitted to me a month or 2 ago when he said he was strugglnig for grass all year that it was because he let cows out early and they did harm and grass never recovered and his milk supply was way back… and there was plenty more guys like him but they blamed it on other factors…

Siamsa Sessions

The media advice was to get 'em out in the muck at all costs last Spring: use all your tricks to get extra days at grass, spur roadways, every day at grass is worth €2.17, make sure they're hungry going out, etc. etc.

Fast forward to Autumn. People were defending protected urea and saying it wasn't at fault for poor grass growth. And what was one of the reasons put forward instead? Apparently now "ground damaged in Spring" was one of the issues.

As a poster said earlier, "I start when I bloody well like and so should everybody else."