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

Timmaay wrote: »

Anyone with maize, what's this year's crop looking like so far?

Aye filled ten pits couple of weeks ago and hope to do that same in maybe another fortnight, seems to be a good crop, eight hours from the field to the pit with one load is a fair distance though

stretch film wrote: »

Was actually saying, in reply to freedom ,that im considering feeding some to plug a gap in the grass wedge.
Saw a met soil moisture figure of 50ml for this area so growth is still compromised.
Reading my own post I can see how it could be misinterpreted

On bringing in dung pats if the grass was soft in the previous round then so was the cow. Should be low enough to the ground .

Relative was talking about scathains (?) recently. Basically collecting dried cow dungs for fuel.

I think the rain over the weekend has got us back to growth. I got your meaning wrong as well. Bales out here since yesterday. We were pre-mowing a good bit of the last rotation bales were in for a bit of quality as well as quantity. We've been around 20kg short of gr until recently.

Second cut aftergrass and a bit of an extension to the rotation are getting us out under the wire now. Pre-mowing after all I posted against doing it certainly helped keep us going through July. Clearout was good as always but without supplement I think yields would have suffered as quality was poor enough in places.

I don't know where this notion that managing cows at grass is straightforward comes from. Turn your back for five minutes this year and something is suffering and you'll get a serious kick in the tank.

freedominacup wrote: »

I think the rain over the weekend has got us back to growth. I got your meaning wrong as well. Bales out here since yesterday. We were pre-mowing a good bit of the last rotation bales were in for a bit of quality as well as quantity. We've been around 20kg short of gr until recently.

Second cut aftergrass and a bit of an extension to the rotation are getting us out under the wire now. Pre-mowing after all I posted against doing it certainly helped keep us going through July. Clearout was good as always but without supplement I think yields would have suffered as quality was poor enough in places.

I don't know where this notion that managing cows at grass is straightforward comes from. Turn your back for five minutes this year and something is suffering and you'll get a serious kick in the tank.

Really tricky to keep grass right this summer especially since May .grass looked good ,grew well for most part but bar a few short spells of sunny weather it just didn't have the same punch as last 2 years

Dawggone wrote:

There was a time we were special because we milked a handful of cows, now we're ...

Gathering cow pats for fuel!

Dawggone wrote:

Good God, what's become of this thread?

"Some falls are means the happier to arise"..

Dawggone wrote: »

"But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike".


(Knowing) "Indignities men come to know dignities".



Like...:).

Ahhh this lady is dignity personified.
Her mother died young and as the oldest girl you can imagine the responsibilities she would have taken on .
You did what you had to in those days is what she always says.

whelan2 wrote: »

are there any 100% autumn calving herds

Plenty of them in the north and loads in the UK can't think of any in the south of Ireland

Would make perfect sense if all milk was contracted through ,liquid/winter baileys type scheme .calve from late September to early mid December ,cows on steady indoor diet and hit high steady peak then from Feb /March on hit grass and watch the solids rise on small ammount of meal .

Group thinking in the last few meetings was to sell culls earlier this year as likely to be a flush of em come on stream later in the year, beat the rush so to speak. Locked up here so drying off high scc/ bad feet culls with autumn calvers in next few weeks and will see if a feed lot may be interested and will milk on any other empties, those with low volume generally fatten away on milkers diet and can go straight to factory from parlour before spring calving starts and good milkers should respond to winter diet.

OverRide wrote: »

Liquid quota is plentiful to buy inside Glanbia and has been for years!
At times it couldn't be sold for lack of demand
I did know one 100% Autumn herd but they sold the herd and went into something else
Speaks volumes

No it's not- I've been buying for last 10yrs

Got 127 litres last yr when I applied for 2000

stanflt wrote: »

No it's not- I've been buying for last 10yrs

Got 127 litres last yr when I applied for 2000

Do you have to buy through a scheme it can you buy privately?

OverRide wrote: »

Well that's definitely not my experience

If you only want small litres you will get them- anyone looking for more than 250 litres never gets them

So they are not freely available

OverRide wrote: »

Well that's definitely not my experience

Not surprising really as you seem to have a different experience to most posters of dealing with glanbia administered schemes. I wonder has Jim's man in Africa opened a boards account?