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

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 09:09AM

Dawggone wrote: »

Exact same problem with grass here this year. No sun and dull weather. Ended up putting lucerne wraps in buffer, something we never have to do.

Still 18%pr is strong for the shoulders...are you buying milk or selling? Have you tried some fibre or Sodium Bentonite?

Def selling ,think all that sun in France could be clouding judgement a bit !!!!,from late August on here grass here whilst looking good dosnt feed or produce as good as it looks .got a few samples tested here a week ago and me on 20 day aftergrass hovering around 11 with variation across samples from 10.5 to 12.5',low in fibre .just not enough punch .my max feeding rate will be no higher than 4 kg and in all likelihood nearer 3.5 with current milk price but I'll be producing milk near and above 4 % p from late September and 4.6 plus fat with decent volumes for a spring calving herd

whelan2 · 30-07-2016 09:10AM

Cows here doing 20 litres @ 3.6pr and 4 fat. Will be drying off about 15 in the next week and the litres/cow will go up , no meal

Dawggone · 30-07-2016 09:30AM

mahoney_j wrote: »

Def selling ,think all that sun in France could be clouding judgement a bit !!!!,from late August on here grass here whilst looking good dosnt feed or produce as good as it looks .got a few samples tested here a week ago and me on 20 day aftergrass hovering around 11 with variation across samples from 10.5 to 12.5',low in fibre .just not enough punch .my max feeding rate will be no higher than 4 kg and in all likelihood nearer 3.5 with current milk price but I'll be producing milk near and above 4 % p from late September and 4.6 plus fat with decent volumes for a spring calving herd

11%pr for well fertilised aftergrass seems very low. I'd have thought it would be double that. No clover I suppose...

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 09:50AM

Dawggone wrote: »

11%pr for well fertilised aftergrass seems very low. I'd have thought it would be double that. No clover I suppose...

11% me (energy content )protein 22.5% got 2 k gallons t shoe slurry and I bag 23% n with 2% sulphur
No clover

yosemitesam1 · 30-07-2016 10:05AM

mahoney_j wrote: »

11% me (energy content )protein 22.5% got 2 k gallons t shoe slurry and I bag 23% n with 2% sulphur
No clover

Worth about .9 ufl with a range from .85 to about 1.08, really shows the variability in grass...

freedominacup · 30-07-2016 11:50AM

mahoney_j wrote: »

From late August till dry off,.have used 18s in spring but not for last 2,years hi energy 16s with just Maize ,barley soya ,beet pulp,and cal mag vits mins etc .mix from late August formulated same at 18 but swap pulp for hulls .grass at time of year ,lush ,can be wet ,hi in p but cows just can't process enough of it through rumen.fair idea of answer you'll give me but we don't get same ammount of sun u do no can we produce crops of clover ,Lucerne maize etc .i know free was feeding a 9% p nut earlier in summer here and admited it was a mistake .even for last few weeks here grass just hadn't a punch to it and was only good for 20 ltrs and more likely less .great growing conditions but sun was missing

The mistake with the 9% was not taking it out in early July. I was happy with the performance last year and this. Milk urea will tell you all you need to know. Apr, May and June grass is loaded with N no real need for any extra protein quite the opposite in fact.

Why palm kernel, yeast and megafat mj? I made a promise to myself a good while ago to never again feed cows with anything out of a 20/25kg bag other than minerals. We did feed a yeast product last winter but it was to counter cows losing cuts and it worked. Would have no regard for those products as performance enhancers. Always seems to be give us 30-40c/cow/day and we'll get you 50-60c return, guaranteed. ðŸ˜‰

freedominacup · 30-07-2016 11:56AM

mahoney_j wrote: »

11% me (energy content )protein 22.5% got 2 k gallons t shoe slurry and I bag 23% n with 2% sulphur
No clover

Not much need for extra protein with that mj. A bit lower on energy than I'd expect for aftergrass. Starch and fibre is what is mainly needed with that otherwise you're making a lot of very expensive pi$$.

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 12:02PM

freedominacup wrote: »

The mistake with the 9% was not taking it out in early July. I was happy with the performance last year and this. Milk urea will tell you all you need to know. Apr, May and June grass is loaded with N no real need for any extra protein quite the opposite in fact.

Why palm kernel, yeast and megafat mj? I made a promise to myself a good while ago to never again feed cows with anything out of a 20/25kg bag other than minerals. We did feed a yeast product last winter but it was to counter cows losing cuts and it worked. Would have no regard for those products as performance enhancers. Always seems to be give us 30-40c/cow/day and we'll get you 50-60c return, guaranteed. ðŸ˜‰

Milk urea running from 12 to 25 max here during same period even on a 14 from late June to when I switched to 16s 10 to 18,now back to 25/30.have faith in megafat used at 2.5% inclusion rate from late March to mid June ,fat up 0.32 on same period last year ,dung had a bit of substance too despite all aftergrass pratically from mid May .palm whilst not the best ingrident included for protein ,some fibre and to substitute ammount of soya needed .proof for me that megafat has worked is that since I took it out my fats which had been running at 4.1 plus are now back to 3.9 .cows peaked here at 34.5 ltrs and held good since early May despite feeding circa 1.7 kg and 2% less p in meal since mid may

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 12:05PM

freedominacup wrote: »

Not much need for extra protein with that mj. A bit lower on energy than I'd expect for aftergrass. Starch and fibre is what is mainly needed with that otherwise you're making a lot of very expensive pi$$.

Havnt report in front of me but the pdie and pdin were low ,ship steady since moving up .as I said grass looks good but not feeding nor testing simillar

freedominacup · 30-07-2016 12:09PM

mahoney_j wrote: »

Havnt report in front of me but the pdie and pdin were low ,ship steady since moving up .as I said grass looks good but not feeding nor testing simillar

Pdie and pdin. Remind me. Measures of protein quality? For your own info if those pd measures are of protein quality how does the palm kernel stack up on those measures?

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 12:15PM

freedominacup wrote: »

Pdie and pdin. Remind me. Measures of protein quality? For your own info if those pd measures are of protein quality how does the palm kernel stack up on those measures?

In short it's the wuality of the protein and ability of ainmal to utilise it .better indicator than crude protein

freedominacup · 30-07-2016 12:20PM

mahoney_j wrote: »

Milk urea running from 12 to 25 max here during same period even on a 14 from late June to when I switched to 16s 10 to 18,now back to 25/30.have faith in megafat used at 2.5% inclusion rate from late March to mid June ,fat up 0.32 on same period last year ,dung had a bit of substance too despite all aftergrass pratically from mid May .palm whilst not the best ingrident included for protein ,some fibre and to substitute ammount of soya needed .proof for me that megafat has worked is that since I took it out my fats which had been running at 4.1 plus are now back to 3.9 .cows peaked here at 34.5 ltrs and held good since early May despite feeding circa 1.7 kg and 2% less p in meal since mid may

So basically a bag of megafat does 300 feeds? Costing how much?

300 feeds on average over the period would deliver around 9000l? Which equates to around 18kg of extra bf from the bag of megafat? Is it cost effective?

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 12:34PM

freedominacup wrote: »

So basically a bag of megafat does 300 feeds? Costing how much?

300 feeds on average over the period would deliver around 9000l? Which equates to around 18kg of extra bf from the bag of megafat? Is it cost effective?

0.3 higher fat over 3 months and better working rumen so id say yes !!!

jaymla627 · 30-07-2016 01:55PM

whelan2 wrote: »

I am in most of the fixed price schemes, I dont know who these lads are who got big allocations in these schemes but what I got in any of them is feck all, in some of the schemes its under 1000 litres per month, not worth talking about.

I reckon their was some messing going on with these schemes with massive fixed scheme allocations being given out to certain suppliers, seen a co-op report for a well known glanbia fan boy who has averaged over 29 cent for milk delivered from Jan to June and would of doubled herd size the past two years , in this instance all his milk on the original herd litres before the spring of 2015 had to of been fixed....
How did he manage to get allocated such a huge volume given your expirence of the schemes

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 02:29PM

jaymla627 wrote: »

I reckon their was some messing going on with these schemes with massive fixed scheme allocations being given out to certain suppliers, seen a co-op report for a well known glanbia fan boy who has averaged over 29 cent for milk delivered from Jan to June and would of doubled herd size the past two years , in this instance all his milk on the original herd litres before the spring of 2015 had to of been fixed....
How did he manage to get allocated such a huge volume given your expirence of the schemes

For any of us on Twitter dosnt take a rocket scientist to figure out who your on about ........Bok .maby he has /had milk in all fixed schemes to date ???.no fixed scheme of any sort for us atrabawn suppliers ,v strong base price ,poor a+b_c price and no fixed scheme

kevthegaff · 30-07-2016 03:52PM

mahoney_j wrote:

For any of us on Twitter dosnt take a rocket scientist to figure out who your on about ........Bok .maby he has /had milk in all fixed schemes to date ???.no fixed scheme of any sort for us atrabawn suppliers ,v strong base price ,poor a+b_c price and no fixed scheme

Its a fairer system IMO j, either fix all suppliers or none. Any scheme ever brought out in this country always had a few major beneficiaries in the know

mahoney_j · 30-07-2016 04:05PM

kevthegaff wrote: »

Its a fairer system IMO j, either fix all suppliers or none. Any scheme ever brought out in this country always had a few major beneficiaries in the know

All suppliers though can opt in or out though Kev ,to me it's a no brainer to be in fixed scheme ,lads that entered various fixed Glanbia schemes now reaping the benefits now with milk on the floor ,there will be times when the opposite will be true as well though.from my understanding the amounts fixed by lads in it will be more for lads that have been availing of previous schemes lads crying wolf now are most likely to not of entered when prices were high but now prices are on floor it was a bad move .they had there chance and refused it do without sounding harsh they need to suck it up ......

MF290 · 30-07-2016 05:27PM

I was having great craic last night winding the other Irish lad, who's from a dairy farm, up telling him he should be baling every blade of grass not topping and should be grass measuring once a week. The final straw was when I told him he should sell off the machinery and get a contractor in for everything

kowtow · 30-07-2016 05:36PM

I think there is a big problem with any co-op offering fixed price contracts on anything but a completely transparent, first come first served basis or some sensible equitable allocation method. Certainly previous take up should not be a factor.

From the farmers point of view a fixed price contract is a speculative position - a hedge - and it will suit certain farmers at certain times depending upon their exposure and risk profile. To limit future schemes to those who participated in previous schemes is to include an undefined option on future volume over a present forward contract - whilst it might appeal to me to calculate the value at risk in such an offer, for a farmer it is simply an inducement to take up a scheme which may or may not be in the interest of the farm.

Which leads neatly on to the position of the co-op themselves. If a given fixed price scheme is backed, to a precise volume, by a known customer at the relevant (fixed) price, then that is one thing and the co-op is being fair by offering it openly to members. In any other setup, especially where it is not offered equally or where there are inducements, the co-op is taking the other side of the book from the farmer and that is very dangerous territory indeed.

In every fixed price forward contract, every time, there is a winner and a loser. It is a zero sum game - either the buyer wins and the farmer loses or vice versa. If the co-op is itself the buyer (because the fixed price contract is not hedged by an equivalent upstream buyer) then by definition all the members are losing at the expense of the winning farmer (or vice versa) - again not an ideal position especially if such fixes are not freely and equally available.

Although it has been suggested here before that fixed price agreements are matched by specific upstream buyers I find that a little odd given the shape of some of the schemes - particularly the Glanbia one recently where scheme volume was doubled in the second half of the term... perhaps someone who is familiar with them will know better.

whelan2 · 30-07-2016 05:38PM

was there much of an uptake in the fixed price feed scheme?

kevthegaff · 30-07-2016 09:06PM

kowtow wrote:

In every fixed price forward contract, every time, there is a winner and a loser. It is a zero sum game - either the buyer wins and the farmer loses or vice versa. If the co-op is itself the buyer (because the fixed price contract is not hedged by an equivalent upstream buyer) then by definition all the members are losing at the expense of the winning farmer (or vice versa) - again not an ideal position especially if such fixes are not freely and equally available.

My point someone will lose! If there's a historic preference for some guys entering through recent involvements in the scheme/or as Jay mentioned in the know, or through merchant purchases there is something seriously wrong. The Co op can decrease/increase base price depending on how the scheme bodes for THEM. Imo I think it's another system to complicate/muddle milk cheques so that farmers can't compare prices from they're own and other co ops. Also another form of risk which I reckon is probably more leveraged on the supplier

Keepgrowing · 31-07-2016 08:53AM

jaymla627 wrote: »

I reckon their was some messing going on with these schemes with massive fixed scheme allocations being given out to certain suppliers, seen a co-op report for a well known glanbia fan boy who has averaged over 29 cent for milk delivered from Jan to June and would of doubled herd size the past two years , in this instance all his milk on the original herd litres before the spring of 2015 had to of been fixed....
How did he manage to get allocated such a huge volume given your expirence of the schemes

You couldn't make this up.
Anyone who applied for the max amount in all schemes would have >50% of their milk fixed. They would've lost out in schemes 1 & 2 but be winning big time now. Some stayed out claiming as you do that it was a scam, Jesus will you ever learn?

Keepgrowing · 31-07-2016 08:55AM

kevthegaff wrote: »

My point someone will lose! If there's a historic preference for some guys entering through recent involvements in the scheme/or as Jay mentioned in the know, or through merchant purchases there is something seriously wrong. The Co op can decrease/increase base price depending on how the scheme bodes for THEM. Imo I think it's another system to complicate/muddle milk cheques so that farmers can't compare prices from they're own and other co ops. Also another form of risk which I reckon is probably more leveraged on the supplier

It's about risk management something farmers are particularly bad at

OverRide · 31-07-2016 09:25AM

Keepgrowing wrote: »

You couldn't make this up.
Anyone who applied for the max amount in all schemes would have >50% of their milk fixed. They would've lost out in schemes 1 & 2 but be winning big time now. Some stayed out claiming as you do that it was a scam, Jesus will you ever learn?

Rubbish
Council members and their friends in the main were the early adopters and remain the only ones looked after since
Talk to whelan2 here as to what the average Glanbia supplier got out of these schemes
Bugger all basically

kevthegaff · 31-07-2016 09:34AM

Keepgrowing wrote:

It's about risk management something farmers are particularly bad at

Do u really believe that it's operated for the benefit of the supplier fr? Why is it the usual suspects that operating fixed schemes? Why should u be tied into previous tranches and fert/meal purchases? Why can't not be paid all the same instead of muddling the waters?

stanflt · 31-07-2016 09:36AM

OverRide wrote: »

Rubbish
Council members and their friends in the main were the early adopters and remain the only ones looked after since
Talk to whelan2 here as to what the average Glanbia supplier got out of these schemes
Bugger all basically

Jeez lads give it a rest- I've f all in all those schemes but my milk price from Jan - June was 28.3 cpl
Stop blaming everyone else

kevthegaff · 31-07-2016 09:37AM

Keepgrowing wrote:

It's about risk management something farmers are particularly bad at

alot of guys that left for dairygold/glanbia have found out about risk management...

yosemitesam1 · 31-07-2016 09:39AM

freedominacup wrote: »

Pdie and pdin. Remind me. Measures of protein quality? For your own info if those pd measures are of protein quality how does the palm kernel stack up on those measures?

There's pdin, pdie and pdia in the french system, they're based on either nitrogen or energy limiting protein production in the rumen
Pdia is the amount of digestible bypass pr,
pdin is made up of pdia+the theoretical amount of digestible protein made from all the degraded protein in rumen allowing for 10% loss, 80% of microbial nitrogen being actual protein and digested with 90% efficiency
Pdie is pdia+the fermentable parts of feed (starch,sugars) potential to supply the energy needed to make protein.
The biggest problem with them is they can't allow for differences in the timing of energy and nitrogen supply, so cows at grass getting meal in the morning could be suffering from lack of pdie later in the day dragging down actual protein digested even though on paper the diets balanced.

kevthegaff · 31-07-2016 09:40AM

stanflt wrote:

Jeez lads give it a rest- I've f all in all those schemes but my milk price from Jan - June was 28.3 cpl Stop blaming everyone else

Not blaming but just hope my own co op don't go down that road, are we not allowed to discuss benefits/pitfalls of fixed price schemes and any other for that matter!

OverRide · 31-07-2016 09:45AM

stanflt wrote: »

Jeez lads give it a rest- I've f all in all those schemes but my milk price from Jan - June was 28.3 cpl
Stop blaming everyone else

Nice one,thats the lie Some co op's want peddled
They are having some success I see

Your constituents are a Different subject entirely and something you have control over

We are talking about fixed price schemes ON TOP OF WHICH you are being paid for your constituents and over which there seems to be a cosy club
So no rest will be given on that topic just as we won't be listening to people who say base isn't so bad because they get 29 or whatever

People getting 29 or whatever are still affected by the low base as if the club in charge paid a fair market price those on 25 to 29 would be on 28 to 32

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

Comments