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

stanflt wrote: »

If milk price doesn't rise above 30cpl by next May I have decided to exit milk production- my grandfather won a quality milk award in 1952 and the cows have won various awards over the years but sentiment doesn't keep the kids and wife and lifestyle going- I may as well exit while I am young so I can focus on a different career path-

Tough times come and go but tough farmers remain. Come on Stan, 30 cent by next may?? You may as well pack up now.

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Free, what's your SR on the milking platform
Have you plans to up it

Overall sr last year over all acres and all stock was 2.5 according to teagasc analysis. I had it lower in my own calculations. Cow numbers up by 25% this year. Using frazzleds count back calc our grass utilised figure based on my sr figure was 11.5-12 tonnes depending on how you value the silage left in store after the winter. If you take teagasc figure grass utilised was a bit higher. No real distinction between grazing platform and overall acres as the only "outfarm" is only 300m from farm entrance. Current sr probably around 3 over all acres.

OverRide wrote: »

Noticed a big upturn in milk myself from 2nd cut after grass during the week,it got no fert and is full of clover

Mine are in fields reseeded in June. Very slow to come in ,full of milk. Great solids. If only price was good

Dawggone wrote: »

Grand for ye to have plenty grass. It has been a good year here too. Cows in full time today.
Lucerne and clover bales with maize silage. Expecting jump in production.

How much of a jump? If you housed when grass was plentiful and in good order would the bales and maize give much of a lift?

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Impressive figures. Do you see yourself upping the SR.
Im still carrying some of the replacement stock here on the MP. I'm at 3 SR atm , but have been looking at moving calving date back 10 days to 10/02 and like yourself not go crazy building too early. Going on last years and this years grass figures with 1-1.1ton (upping by 400kgs) of meal and by getting the balance of the replacement stock off the mp, a SR of 3.3 is achievable.
Head scratching here, because to make this move would leave me on the wire grass wise and would mean a labour cost of ~18k ( but no capex). I don't want to end up with a high cost system.

High cost per what? And then compared to what!

freedominacup wrote: »

Cows in second cut aftergrass last night. Nice lift in the tank this morning. It was a suck it and see job. I wasn't sure how good the covers were but we didn't want to allow it get too strong before we went in or it might not all get grazed before quality dipped.

We're considering not building covers and taking the surpluses that should develop over the next few weeks off as bales. Our girls won't deliver from late Sept without good supplementation so not much point in having big covers. Utilisation is usually poor and they end up getting a big proportion of their feed in a tmr anyway from them on. They delivered over 100kg of ms/hd in the last quarter of last year so there's a reasonable return for the inputs.

Are you calving many this autumn. (%age of herd).
It might amuse others but we are not going to be able to build much grass if August comes dry.
Still seeing stem coming in short rotation paddocks due to moisture stress.
With extra numbers and full appetites (no drys) current g rates are not going to do a lot imo. The kick after some reasonable rain would be gladly accepted in a couple of weeks.

Keepgrowing wrote: »

What kind of growths are you getting. Just about enough rain to keep growth at 70-80. 5 miles from me lads feeding bales

We were feeding bales until yesterday. Gr around fifty based on the supplementation needed to bridge the gap between demand and what's in the paddocks. I think bales will be going back in after another couple of days. Pulled out of aftergrass, just not enough on it yet. We're getting just enough moisture to keep the stress heading at bay. Around 6/7 miles from stretch as the crow flies.

stretch film wrote: »

Are you calving many this autumn. (%age of herd).
It might amuse others but we are not going to be able to build much grass if August comes dry.
Still seeing stem coming in short rotation paddocks due to moisture stress.
With extra numbers and full appetites (no drys) current g rates are not going to do a lot imo. The kick after some reasonable rain would be gladly accepted in a couple of weeks.

Around 15%. There's a few good young cows who will milk on at a reasonable yield. More than 50% of the herd will be milking Christmas day. They'll only be dried as they're due. We're heading into Aug in fairly good order but ikwym about the difficulties building covers anyway.

The lack of oppurtunity to build covers for four out of the last five years is colouring my thinking on the bales. That and the lift in performance we saw every time we had to house day and night in the spring. Too much of the thinking on production from grass is based on quota limiting production.

We had to go in hard with feed to arrest a big drop in production in early July. We lost 4-5l day in as many collections over the turn of the month. Grass just wasn't getting it done. Lack of quality and quantity to a lesser extent. This morning's collection was back up to the same level as June 24th with a couple less cows. I was listening and reading a lot of opinion talking about cows past their peak and taking out supplement. I estimate it cost me 120-150l/cow for the want of maybe 75kg of meal. Pr level was also too low in what we were feeding which was another mistake. Even at current prices it puts me a couple of thousand euro out of pocket over the past month.

stretch film wrote: »

Are you calving many this autumn. (%age of herd).
It might amuse others but we are not going to be able to build much grass if August comes dry.
Still seeing stem coming in short rotation paddocks due to moisture stress.
With extra numbers and full appetites (no drys) current g rates are not going to do a lot imo. The kick after some reasonable rain would be gladly accepted in a couple of weeks.

20 days growing. Stem apparent.

darragh_haven wrote: »

I'm really surprised that you are getting stem after only 20 days. Hard to manage grass in that situation

Most of bales made this yr have been of the hairy variety

Have my dry cows/incalf heifers grazing any hairy paddocks. Milking Cows on best grass. Will start restricting dry cow intake about 10 days before calving

Wildsurfer wrote: »

I was just going to commend your litres figure but then noticed its from June. Why is that not updating for you?

It's manually entered so I just didn't do it since.
24.5 l atm @1.92kg solids.

Like freedom I've noticed a fairly rapid drop off. A bit too quickly for my liking.
A little drop in meal ,sneaking some older/poorer grass from heifers block into cows and maybe going in calf are the reasons I'm coming up with. It's still a little more of a drop than I'd like

freedominacup wrote: »

Yep. Twenty days wouldn't be fast. You know it's gonna start costing money when you are them after ten.

Did ye ever grow any of the more drought tolerant grasses that send roots down 2-3 foot? Chicory might help keep quality up too, plenty of nz research on it...