Dairy chit chat II

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Started to read article, stumbled at the first mention of An Taisce but kept going. Stopped the moment I read “JOHN Gibbons said”

Google Gibbons, read his musings and then decide as to his agenda.

John Gibbion is a tin foil hat kinda guy. And modern farming is the devils work.

I had my own 2 year battle with An Taisce, its classed as a charity to avoid tax. And totally faceless at a local level . Shower of f......

mahoney_j wrote: »

U can bet your bottom dollar they all too but may not mention it as there seems to be an afull stigma or impression of poor grass manager if u do .some places go way overboard pushing cows too hard on cleanouts .cows can’t be used as toppers if u do tank and milk Cheque will suffer

Ah blast it I only asked about a good topper, have ye all attention deficit, a simple question and you all sound like professer Jerry Boyle

Cow are drinking some amount of water with this heat at least 50,000 litres drank here since morning milking hope to deck the well doesn't run dry

Put in new 250 gallon troughs in last few weeks around the paddocks, great not to have to worry about water supply on a day like today.

leg wax wrote: »

will cell count rise just because of this heat,coming from a very low base but it has doubled in the last few days ,milk filter is spotless, and stripped them this morn just in case but all fine....

The heat in the ground. Cows lying down longer. Well that's my take on it anyway

alps wrote: »

90% of farms graze covers that are too high. If you can consistently graze at the correct time, skipping everything that has gone past ideal, you can go long way to achieving what you refer to.

But you will notice that a mower passes over each and every paddock that had at some stage gone too strong.

Your reward will be more milk more protein, and more grass grown..

That's the goal.
I spent .my summers when I was in school topping paddocks; looking back on it, it was some waste of time!
1 hour grass measuring has a far bigger effect on grass quality than 10 hours topping

Bulls gone today, looking for a few extra to cull in 30 days!!

Silage with cows yesterday. Talking to contractor, says a lot of lads getting worried.

Big decisions to be made very soon...

My take on it is that this farm will not grow a surplus of grass again until Magic Day 2019....

Any daily surplus that may occur between here and September will now be needed to fill the winter budget, so in effect we will not see a true surplus again until 2019.

This means that from here to the end of the year a massive proprotion of our milk will be produced from fully bought in feed. With fodders/concentrates now costing and likely to cost 300/tonne dry matter, how much of this milk production is actually viable.

To date during this drought, we have been operating on the MO of "stay in the game"..."it's only a few weeks"..but looking at in more depth, because we are now dipping into winter reserves be it fodder or finances, to hold production and body condition, the limits of viable milk output from here to year end needs to be looked at more closely.

Do we need to reduce cow numbers, is once a day or drying a proprotion of the herd a realistic tool at this stage?

I do think that we need to plan the whole way through to May next year, and not just till the next rain comes..

Silage yields from 2nd cuts are dismal, green barley prices are now north of 200€, 2 tonne crops of whole crop cereals might have been the pit filler, but now looks like it could cost an arm and a leg on a kg/DM basis.

Buying DM that is too expensive could mean that your farm could be in negative profitability all the way through to summer next year...

I can't but think that reducing the demand, will reduce the loss, and may be the outstanding route to turning profit for the rest of that period...

alps wrote: »

Big decisions to be made very soon...

My take on it is that this farm will not grow a surplus of grass again until Magic Day 2019....

Any daily surplus that may occur between here and September will now be needed to fill the winter budget, so in effect we will not see a true surplus again until 2019.

This means that from here to the end of the year a massive proprotion of our milk will be produced from fully bought in feed. With fodders/concentrates now costing and likely to cost 300/tonne dry matter, how much of this milk production is actually viable.

To date during this drought, we have been operating on the MO of "stay in the game"..."it's only a few weeks"..but looking at in more depth, because we are now dipping into winter reserves be it fodder or finances, to hold production and body condition, the limits of viable milk output from here to year end needs to be looked at more closely.

Do we need to reduce cow numbers, is once a day or drying a proprotion of the herd a realistic tool at this stage?

I do think that we need to plan the whole way through to May next year, and not just till the next rain comes..

Silage yields from 2nd cuts are dismal, green barley prices are now north of 200€, 2 tonne crops of whole crop cereals might have been the pit filler, but now looks like it could cost an arm and a leg on a kg/DM basis.

Buying DM that is too expensive could mean that your farm could be in negative profitability all the way through to summer next year...

I can't but think that reducing the demand, will reduce the loss, and may be the outstanding route to turning profit for the rest of that period...

If your lowly borrowed and have cash reserves to plug the hole created by reduced cash flow by culling numbers it's an option alright, if your carrying significant debt levels and have to have x amount in the account per month to service this it's not as easy.
Return on bought in feed will be pretty poor alright for a lot of herds that are only doing 21-22 litres and putting in 6kgs of meal plus silage, feed a lot here but have a cow that responds to it, tipping point here is for every kilo of meal put in 3 litres of milk need to be produced when the cost of grass/silage is also factored in

3.33 pr.
4.4 bf.
120scc
6 tbc
200 thermo.
31.3 litres.
Urea 32.

Gave grass another 30mm last week but cows had to come in by day as temps circa 35*. Out by night though. If grass doesn’t crisp I’ll wrap a few paddocks.

Brown Podzol wrote: »

Dawg, can you give some guidelines on irrigation. There's a river running around 2/3 of the farm here, so water supply is not a problem. Umbilical slurry system costs c. €110/hour, will pump c. 40,000 gals an hour. Amount of water needed and potential growth expected.

55 per acre for an inch of water...very expensive

https://www.dairynz.co.nz/business/adverse-events/drought/farming-through-the-drought//