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

OverRide wrote: »

Nope
The only way you can get UK vat taken off stuff from the North is if you are vat registered in the Republic ,by giving them your Vat number

(I sent you a pm the other day btw...)

If you are entitled to claim the vat back (as a fixed farm item or whatever) you might be able to get a company which is vat registered in the south to import it, then invoice you for the gross amount (with vat) which you could then presumably reclaim.

Signpost wrote: »

I use a lad who scans from the outside. Can do it after 60 days in calf but I usually let mine go longer. Last year was my first time using him and was nearly telling me the colour of their eyes not to mind the date and was spot on with all his dates. Only charged 3 euro a cow too so thought it was good value. Serves most of munster area I think so drop me a message if anyone wants his number.

I'd likehis number please..I'm in tipperary. .

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Timbers 25€ each

For 15ft bays?

kowtow wrote: »

Brain picking time.. as I am sure I have mentioned, since narrowing the pit in our parlour we've been milking on one side only (the RHS of the photo below) and now we're ready to finish the job, refloor, and complete both sides. Not a moment too soon as I'm in danger of falling asleep while waiting for some of the rows.



Before I complete it though... and especially before I screed the floors.. I'm tempted to make a few once and for all changes.

First, the new narrower pit (you can see the new rails within the old in the photo) is only 4ft from rump to rump. Too small, I now think, especially with jars. I like the new 50 degree angle so I'm thinking of pulling out the extension we put on the right, and taking out & moving back the whole RHS wall of the parlour on that side to make the pit luxuriously big and (while I am at it)...

Replace the existing curved roof - which is falling anyway and far too low to accomodate my new feeders without the cows beating them to pieces. I've found some flexi augurs finally and a bin to match so no more buckets and the feeders can be as high as we like..

The wider pit and the roof are simple enough in themselves, but since I'm going to have to take down the back wall (the cow entrance) to do it I'm beginning to think about what to build in it's place and what to put where the sliding entrance doors are currently. I've got a pair of pneumatic gates to go behind the back cows on each side and I'm not sure how sliding doors can best interact with them... difficult I think to have no doors at all because the yard outside is exposed to the south wind & rain.. but I'm not sure whether I should design it to let cows come in and mill behind the back bail gate - and whether they should still have two entrances so they have to pick a side before coming in. The yard outside also slopes down from the left hand side in the photo so currently there is a small step or ramp up to worry about as well.

I don't really want to extend the new roof a long way back behind the parlour because the crush is there and frankly I ought to be digging up that yard and putting a tank in if I was going that far. I could go back a few feet further than at present, but should I be trying to get the cows to mix sides or not? How far back should the parlour doors be from the bail gate? If I did set it back a bit and allow the cows to mix up behind the bails could I use one larger sliding entrance door, but slightly off centre to allow it to slide across?

All ideas gratefully received.



The photo below shows the back of the existing pit (new door on the working side) and how narrow the new rails are compared to the old 3ft centres pit. The rear bail gates will / should close to the new posts where the last cow stands.

Would you not be better start from scratch and put in a parlour?? I know from our own yard when it's not put in right or half done it will come back to haunt with more hassle down the line!

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

I would 100% disagree with you.

You get fat oul pudgy yokes that never reach there potential.
Why would you want to miss out on 6 mths extra milk.
Rearing them to 24 months is very easy to do,slot of mine should really be calving down at 20 mths they grow so fast

I calved 60 odd heifers this yr with an avg age of 1yr 11 months- some were 28 months old some 20 months- no diff in output between younger and older just as long as they are the target weights calving- heifers will do 520kg ms avg with herd doing 600avg

Easier to push calves from a young age as they are more efficient converters of feed for the first 6-8 months of age

DKDairy wrote: »

Planning on going dairy in 2019 and am looking at the type of cow im going for..dry and slighty hilly land with maybe 15 acres wet in real weather but always great to grow grass..have a milking platform of about 170 acres..300 days at grass achievable...thinking about a jersey cross? Any thoughts

Best advice is to hop in your car and visit as many new start ups and existing operators as possible while you have the time. Pros and cons to every cow, system and parlour. The great thing about our industry is people are open about sharing information and most will admit to their mistakes.

Book into Grassland conference, Teagasc dairy conference and Positive farmers conference. You won't agree with it all but you will make your own mind up based on facts.

And don't take all your advice from here!

A post from Graise Consultantancy

A good read

Autumn calving, how do you influence the cost of feed COP....

I was with a one of my regular groups in the UK this week where the cost of production (COP) was the main focus for the day and some interesting points came out of this.
Going around the group and looking at other farms I work with both in the UK and Ireland that are calving in autumn, there is a huge variation in feeding regimes in place, but when asked what drives the decision to feed at any particular level there is rarely a very technical answer as in most cases corn is fed at a rate that the farmer is comfortable with, not really ever at a level that has been worked out to be most profitable.
Corn feeding rates often vary from 4 to 10Kg/cow/day but production levels do not always reflect the level of corn fed, due to the many other influencing factors.
There are many variables that determine response to feeding but the most fundamental factor to lowering your winter feed cost is that you must have very high quality silage as a base.

The most limiting factor in feeding housed cows is intake volume. If you could get the cows to consume 20+KgDM/day and have 16KgDM of this in the form of high quality silage then you would lower your feed COP dramatically.
The most limiting factor to achieving high intakes of silage is digestibility. For every 1% lower DMD of the total diet, you lower potential intakes by 0.3 to 0.4KgDM/cow/day.
This means that if you have 78% DMD silage and the cows are on silage only, they would consume 2KgDM/cow/day more than if you had 72%DMD silage. If silage makes up ¾ of the diet then it would equate to 1.5KgDM/cow/day lower intakes.
At 1.5KgDM/day lower intakes X 11MJME/KgDM, this is around 16MJME less intakes which is enough to reduce production by 3 litres/cow/day.
This means that your focus needs to firstly be on having the best possible silage for milking cows before you can make any decisions on level of cake to feed.

The corn you feed should complement the silage, will need to be higher protein to counter the lower protein in the silage, aiming for a total diet average of around 16 to 17%CP and should also be highly digestible.
The rate you feed economically largely depends on the substitution rate. If there was no substitution of silage for the corn, then feeding corn would be an easy calculation as the corn fed should always have 12 to 13MJME/KgDM and it takes around 5.5MJME/litre milk produced so you would expect a lift of around 2 litres/cow/day for every Kg corn fed.
The reality is that there is an increasing rate of substitution as Kg corn fed increases, so when you feed 1Kg/cow there may be very little substitution, more for the second and more still for the 3rd and so on.
Depending very much on cow type and quality of the forage available, substitution of 90% plus would be expected anywhere from 5Kg/cow to 8Kg/cow during the housed period (when on pasture this happens at a much lower rate, at 2-4Kg/cow fed)

One other option to increase silage intakes would be to either mix in some form of corn at time of feeding or at time of making the clamp, depending on feeding methods. Maize distillers for example included at 8 to 10% at time of making the clamp would probably equate to around 2KgDM/cow at time of feeding, increasing the intakes of the silage and decreasing the level of corn fed in the parlour.
Other influencing factors on feeding level decisions include the influence on fertility and the impact on the whole lactation if lower/higher peak production is achieved. Also, at low milk price profitability may stop at 60% substitution whereas at high milk price closer to 90%.

So what is the answer to the question of how much to feed?
Like a politician, I can’t tell you as it would mean looking at every individual’s situation taking into account; silage quality, cow type, milk payment basis/level and feeding methods, I would expect that profitable level would range from 4Kg/cow to 8Kg/cow/day, anything above that I would look very hard at alternatives.

When comparing COP between farms it is also important to be aware of breed/milk contract influence.
For example, some herds are doing huge litres but at around 7% fat and protein, 2KgMS takes 28.6 litres to produce whereas at 8.5% f & p it takes only 23.5 litres to do the same.
If £1.30/cow/day is being spent on feed, then the feed cost for the high litre cows is 4.5ppl as the £1.30 is diluted across 28.6 litres but the same £1.30/cow cost/day diluted over 23.5 litres equates to 5.5ppl.
You have exactly the same KgMS/cow/day and feed cost to do this production but when expressed as cost/litre it makes the low volume cows look worse when they're probably more profitable.
On the other hand, the income/litre will counteract this as it works the opposite, the low volume cows will look very high income/litre and the high volume cows will look low but the total income figure may be similar.

For any further information or to discuss, contact me anytime;

Andre van Barneveld
Dairy Consultant
Graise Ltd
00353 87 9418868
graiseconsult@gmail.com

darragh_haven wrote: »

https://twitter.com/farmersjournal/status/792380112058580992

Sadly this could be imposed on us all

Timmaay wrote: »

Causally opening another paddock gap and letting the cows on into another 36hr block. And it's 2days away from Nov! If carslberg did grazing seasons...

If we could have a repeat every year from mid July on here it would be nice, though from 1st week of Nov last year it just stayed raining.