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

kowtow · 09-10-2016 01:38PM

Keepgrowing wrote:

Ah no not now. Was on a farm that came out contract in Dec and got that till spot recovered, they're trying hard to get a contract again. Funny old world that people here hate them so much

There are good contracts and bad contracts, there are also good contracts that end up paying low and bad contracts that end up paying high.

I think what people here lack is confidence in the processors to offer contracts with transparent terms.

Keepgrowing · 09-10-2016 01:54PM

Dawggone wrote: »

Hmmm.
I can only talk about my patch.

You must also understand that it's not a level playing pitch as regards nitrates. How many unitsN/acre (inc dero) are you allowed?

A lot of shyte as usual being bandied about...especially about milk price. What Coop in France payed/paying 23cpl? Is it a pile of ashes now?
I consistently post my *base* price here and it never went to 23cpl...
I also quote guaranteed minimum base price 3mts in advance.

I've done a bit of farming in Ireland and I can't see any real difference between both countries except one enormous chasm...land price and availability.

I also forgot to mention that I harvest 4 to 5tDm/ha of 26-29%pr clovers from every ha of maize ground.

I'm not questioning your price at all but I have a copy of a statement belonging to a northern French farmer who visited us.

Land price and availability is our limiting factor. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from a neighbour yesterday morning asking me to graze 50 acres of grass for him. He is a tillage farmer who grassed land instead of putting in grain and sold silage.

Went to visit him in afternoon and talk soon got to leasing his whole operation with him as a partner

I've not gotten a call like this in a few years.

Edit: things just may be changing on the land front

Timmaay · 09-10-2016 02:34PM

Keepgrowing wrote: »

I'm not questioning your price at all but I have a copy of a statement belonging to a northern French farmer who visited us.

Land price and availability is our limiting factor. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from a neighbour yesterday morning asking me to graze 50 acres of grass for him. He is a tillage farmer who grassed land instead of putting in grain and sold silage.

Went to visit him in afternoon and talk soon got to leasing his whole operation with him as a partner

I've not gotten a call like this in a few years.

Edit: things just may be changing on the land front

I'm taking full advantage of the tams2 at the minute and would expect to have a 20unit parlour and winter accommodation for 200cows within 18months. I'm fully happy to take the gamble that by then extra land needed will have sorted itself out ha!

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 03:03PM

Keepgrowing wrote: »

I'm not questioning your price at all but I have a copy of a statement belonging to a northern French farmer who visited us.

Land price and availability is our limiting factor. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from a neighbour yesterday morning asking me to graze 50 acres of grass for him. He is a tillage farmer who grassed land instead of putting in grain and sold silage.

Went to visit him in afternoon and talk soon got to leasing his whole operation with him as a partner

I've not gotten a call like this in a few years.

Edit: things just may be changing on the land front

Fire up a photo of that statement please.
I only know Lactalis suppliers up north, family owned company, that will pay an average of 27.5 (or 28?)cpl +vat base (minimum) for 2016. I'd like to know what Coop got to pay less than a non cooperative.

Best of luck with the new lease.

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 03:04PM

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm taking full advantage of the tams2 at the minute and would expect to have a 20unit parlour and winter accommodation for 200cows within 18months. I'm fully happy to take the gamble that by then extra land needed will have sorted itself out ha!

Glad you changed your mind from a few months back Tim.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 09-10-2016 03:10PM

Dawggone wrote: »

Hmmm.
I can only talk about my patch.

You must also understand that it's not a level playing pitch as regards nitrates. How many unitsN/acre (inc dero) are you allowed?

A lot of shyte as usual being bandied about...especially about milk price. What Coop in France payed/paying 23cpl? Is it a pile of ashes now?
I consistently post my *base* price here and it never went to 23cpl...
I also quote guaranteed minimum base price 3mts in advance.

I've done a bit of farming in Ireland and I can't see any real difference between both countries except one enormous chasm...land price and availability.

I also forgot to mention that I harvest 4 to 5tDm/ha of 26-29%pr clovers from every ha of maize ground.

There's a big difference between available market also. You have a population of some 66million and a different food culture that prizes taste and home produced. We have a market of 4.7 million and a food culture that equates cheap with excellence.

Our systems would never be comparable, imo.

Keepgrowing · 09-10-2016 03:12PM

Dawggone wrote: »

Fire up a photo of that statement please.
I only know Lactalis suppliers up north, family owned company, that will pay an average of 27.5 (or 28?)cpl +vat base (minimum) for 2016. I'd like to know what Coop got to pay less than a non cooperative.

Best of luck with the new lease.

Won't be posting that photo

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 03:12PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

There's a big difference between available market also. You have a population of some 66million and a different food culture that prizes taste and home produced. We have a market of 4.7 million and a food culture that equates cheap with excellence.

Our systems would never be comparable, imo.

+1.
As I've already posted for the month of Oct I'm getting 31cpl +vat (guaranteed price of 30cpl +extra 1cpl) so starting to kick on now. Glad I didn't take the 24cpl 'dole'.

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 03:13PM

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Won't be posting that photo

OK.

Timmaay · 09-10-2016 03:21PM

Dawggone wrote: »

Glad you changed your mind from a few months back Tim.

I actually haven't hugely in one sense. I am still only planning 5years max into the future, any investments need to pay for themselves within 5 or 6years (equivalent to a 20%roi), my exit door is still quite nearby if milk was to flatline at 20c or less etc. Leasing land or going into partnership like KG still leaves my options wayy more open than say buying land and spending 20years paying for itself.

Or well being fully honest, I always become utterly sick and tired of farming come late spring, long hours, poor weather, disease problems with calves etc etc. The only solution to this, I will not go one cow over 110cows in total without having a 2nd labour unit of some sort for the springtime.

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 06:39PM

Timmaay wrote: »

I actually haven't hugely in one sense. I am still only planning 5years max into the future, any investments need to pay for themselves within 5 or 6years (equivalent to a 20%roi), my exit door is still quite nearby if milk was to flatline at 20c or less etc. Leasing land or going into partnership like KG still leaves my options wayy more open than say buying land and spending 20years paying for itself.

Or well being fully honest, I always become utterly sick and tired of farming come late spring, long hours, poor weather, disease problems with calves etc etc. The only solution to this, I will not go one cow over 110cows in total without having a 2nd labour unit of some sort for the springtime.

+1.
I'd consider 5yrs, in these times of commodity oversupply, plenty long enough to plan.

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 06:40PM

mf240 wrote: »

He lets them out for a hour so he can service the cow scratchers and top up the lava lamps

And change the chill-out music whilst lighting the joss sticks!

kowtow · 09-10-2016 06:55PM

mf240 wrote:

He lets them out for a hour so he can service the cow scratchers and top up the lava lamps

As far as I know he doesn't have to service either of the cow scratchers.. but they do both need a lunch break in the middle of the shift.

Dawggone · 09-10-2016 06:58PM

kowtow wrote: »

As far as I know he doesn't have to service either of the cow scratchers.. but they do both need a lunch break in the middle of the shift.

A big lol.

darragh_haven · 09-10-2016 07:08PM

In Austria the last few days, surprised at the amount ot animals grazing with similar strip grazing to home. Big premium for grass and hay fed milk. One big herd was out grazing, and could have been mistaken for an irish dairy farm but for the scenery and cow colour

Keepgrowing · 09-10-2016 07:23PM

My oldest 2 lads Mr 9 and Mr 10 milked the whole herd this evening. I started as they brought in cows, I then went to move breaks and get tomorrow's breaks done. Fed calves and only had to set up parlour for washing. Great chaps 12 rows of cows.

Proud Daddy

Sam Kade · 09-10-2016 10:12PM

Keepgrowing wrote: »

My oldest 2 lads Mr 9 and Mr 10 milked the whole herd this evening. I started as they brought in cows, I then went to move breaks and get tomorrow's breaks done. Fed calves and only had to set up parlour for washing. Great chaps 12 rows of cows.

Proud Daddy

They'll be sorry after awhile

kowtow · 09-10-2016 10:16PM

Just got my milk recording results, which because we don't supply the co-op are actually the first measure we've ever had of what the cows are up to.

All cows HO/FR except one RO and all on once a day this year. 80% of the herd 3rd lactation or earlier.

SCC overall 161 but a lot of that was one poor old girl at 385, who had been feeding calves and is almost dry. Barely managed to strip a sample of milk from her when the recorder was in. Will have to work a bit on her. Half the herd under 100K which I think is ok for once a day? We're going to go back to twice a day any way next season so not going to get excited.

305 day yield 5707kg, 4.40 F, 3.50P, 4.69 L% (lactose?)

Need to get the girls some protein bars.

Can't find the pregnancy results on icbf maybe they come separately.

Midfield9 · 09-10-2016 11:33PM

kowtow wrote: »

Just got my milk recording results, which because we don't supply the co-op are actually the first measure we've ever had of what the cows are up to.

All cows HO/FR except one RO and all on once a day this year. 80% of the herd 3rd lactation or earlier.

SCC overall 161 but a lot of that was one poor old girl at 385, who had been feeding calves and is almost dry. Barely managed to strip a sample of milk from her when the recorder was in. Will have to work a bit on her. Half the herd under 100K which I think is ok for once a day? We're going to go back to twice a day any way next season so not going to get excited.

305 day yield 5707kg, 4.40 F, 3.50P, 4.69 L% (lactose?)

Need to get the girls some protein bars.

Can't find the pregnancy results on icbf maybe they come separately.

Usually take a couple of days longer to get pregnancy results

kowtow · 10-10-2016 09:09AM

Where do you guys draw the line for high cell count cows and what is the best long term treatment for them?

Only a couple over 200 + the outlier above but both good cows and in a small herd would think hard before culling anyway... on the other hand have vary harsh HACCP requirements for milk quality.

None of these have ever had a clinical case of mastitis... would a dry off treatment be the answer or is there anything we can do while still in lactation? Will CMT some quarters tonight to further investigate.

Mooooo · 10-10-2016 09:17AM

If you want to try and hang on to them, cmt the quarters find the problem quarter and take a milk sample to the vet to get it tested and see which antibiotic would work best. Other than that when dry off give a long dry period and use a good dry cow tube, again testing the milk is probably the best way but cepravin is a good tube for dry cows. Your scc is very good considering once a day. If there are cows heading for millionaire status on scc the best solution is generally maccy d's

blackdog1 · 10-10-2016 09:41AM

kowtow wrote:

None of these have ever had a clinical case of mastitis... would a dry off treatment be the answer or is there anything we can do while still in lactation? Will CMT some quarters tonight to further investigate.

You can get a tube called hurricane. It has no withdrawal and is all natural, think it has garlic and the like in it. Have a cousin who uses it for that types problem and finds it good.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 10-10-2016 10:23AM

Mooooo wrote: »

If you want to try and hang on to them, cmt the quarters find the problem quarter and take a milk sample to the vet to get it tested and see which antibiotic would work best. Other than that when dry off give a long dry period and use a good dry cow tube, again testing the milk is probably the best way but cepravin is a good tube for dry cows. Your scc is very good considering once a day. If there are cows heading for millionaire status on scc the best solution is generally maccy d's

If you decide to keep them, you can add treating them with something like Tylosin at drying off and also putting an ordinary mastitis tube into the quarter at drying off along with the dry cow tube. If one of the cows is lame, Tylosin is also useful as a double bonus in treating foot infections along with mastitis.

Just make sure you opt for the dearer bottle of Tylosin as the cheaper one isn't indicated for use with pregnant cows.

atlantic mist · 10-10-2016 03:48PM

i tried tysolin on high scc cows a few years back, didnt get any good of it, we would now double tube any high scc at drying off and have had better results

a lot at play with scc - internal infection, weather, temperature, dehydrated, received a puck from team mate, milking process, might be no harm to test again.

if a millionaire (SCC) we'd cull straight away, scc of 200 would not worry me to much, ive a few but in comparison to your held ive a lot more cows to dilute figure plus im on a two day collection which helps overall bulk tank sample, they say scc is not impacted by a 2 or 3 day collection but from our experience there is a substantial difference, dont most farmhouse cheeses use the previous days milk?

kowtow do you not get every milk batch tested in the cheese making process? How do you know quality by taste?

Buford T. Justice XIX · 10-10-2016 04:30PM

atlantic mist wrote: »

i tried tysolin on high scc cows a few years back, didnt get any good of it, we would now double tube any high scc at drying off and have had better results

a lot at play with scc - internal infection, weather, temperature, dehydrated, received a puck from team mate, milking process, might be no harm to test again.

if a millionaire (SCC) we'd cull straight away, scc of 200 would not worry me to much, ive a few but in comparison to your held ive a lot more cows to dilute figure plus im on a two day collection which helps overall bulk tank sample, they say scc is not impacted by a 2 or 3 day collection but from our experience there is a substantial difference, dont most farmhouse cheeses use the previous days milk?

kowtow do you not get every milk batch tested in the cheese making process? How do you know quality by taste?

Double drycow tube? Sealers?

I would use Tylosin on younger cows as there seems better results. 3 millionaires this year probably going to get hit with everything I can use. Just a PITA dealing with them and disinfection of the cluster and gloves. I'm hoping for 2 with low scc next year but keeping just 1 will be better than breakeven for the cost.

I've seen hurricane talked about but haven't seen it yet. My vet hasn't it in stock but it would be interesting to use when he gets it in.

kowtow · 10-10-2016 06:06PM

atlantic mist wrote: »

dont most farmhouse cheeses use the previous days milk?

kowtow do you not get every milk batch tested in the cheese making process? How do you know quality by taste?

By taste (which believe me is taking me a long time to develop) and to some extent by coagulation time.. the time to set a curd after rennet-ting the milk. there is also an increasing move among even farmhouse cheesemakers to measure PH continuously through the process - the PH profile against time during the make is pretty much the "fingerprint" of a particular cheese.

The Irish recommendation for raw milk cheese at least is that milk must be in the vat within 24 hours of milking... pasteurised wouldn't matter so much.. but in any event later lactation milk and/or any milk with a higher cell count is more difficult to coagulate and tends to have a higher PH which shifts the parameters of the rest of the process.

I'm resistant to testing every batch of milk chemically before cheese making because I believe that the seasonality of milk and the variations are an important part of a unique product - the basic aim to be to make cheese from well looked after, clean, and disease free cows first and foremost and then let the milk in the vat guide you.

I am going to milk record frequently, at least quarterly, however, as a baseline and as part of the HAACP process I'm putting together. This recording was the first attempt and all round I'm fairly relieved that what my nose and tongue and the look of the milk was telling me seems to be borne out on paper.

We may also end up supplying our excess milk to the creamery which if nothing else would give us a regular bactoscan etc. which can do no harm.