coolshannagh28 wrote: » Its debatable if this is an effective means of recording cows milk potential , would the calf not need to be weighed at birth for any level of accuracy ? Its interesting that the drive towards milk will benefit dairy farmers as demand for dairy x heifers will increase as the govt proves their point .
TooOldBoots wrote: » Its still going to be a very crude method of scoring a cow for milk and performance when so many other factors can effect the performance of the cow and calf. Stocking density Weather Grass Quality Time to pasture Heath of the animals etc etc
TooOldBoots wrote: » No it wont, it'll be the same as the suckler welfare scheme in the past. Farmers back then filled out the forms, put down any old dates etc and there were very few Weaned Weanlings at the autumn sales. The same thing will happen again. Farmers will get the number of the scales from a neighbor or wherever then eyeball the cow and calf weights for the form and collect the money.
TooOldBoots wrote: » Yeah and they did spot checks for the suckler welfare scheme did they? I remember I was the only fool in the Mart with weaned and on meal stock. Every other Weanling there was bawling for the cow. And since when is a mart scales or (factory scales) within calibration or spec? Most farmers worth there salt can eyeball a Weanling weight to within 50kg.
bogman_bass wrote: » My memory is there was way less bawling during the scheme
patsy_mccabe wrote: » Not with statistics, they'll know if you just put down any old info. They're not stupid. These weanlings will end up in the mart, where they are weighed and weights sent to ICBF. Your weights won't correlate right with the mart weights. Also if you use AI or have bulls of known breeding, all the odd stuff will show up aswell. If they do spotchecks, you'll be first on the list.
Limestone Cowboy wrote: » This is one of the things that peeves me about Icbf and I brought it up at one of those nights at the Mart where they had a speaker there. They already have a huge amount of this info from marts, weights and price per kilo and all the info we have filled in for the bdgp to correlate with it and I don't see what benefit weighing the cow brings to it. The heaviest weanling I sold last October was a February born black lim out of a 5 star Hereford cow 365kg-680. Grand straight calf but nothing fancy either. Sold 9 red lims out of lim cows at an average of 280kg-840. There is only one statistic there that matters.
Limestone Cowboy wrote: » Efficient at producing kilos or Money?
bogman_bass wrote: » If you have the data you can figure out both
White Clover wrote: » Which one do you think is the most important one to limestone cowboy? Or any farmer for that matter?
patsy_mccabe wrote: » Did anyone apply on-line yet Lads? If so, how?
Parishlad wrote: Yep, through Agfood. There is an option to select on left hand side for the scheme. Just need to select it and tick a box.
therunaround wrote: » Would a cattle scales with +/- 1kg acurracy like the one mentioned here be suitable for weighing lambs too? If it would do that job too I think I'd definitely go for it.
tractorporn wrote: » Has anyone registered a scales yet? I had a quick look on ICBF and can't see anywhere to register?
