Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

believe it or not there are some fine dairy farms in Kerry

It’s not growing here too dry- spoke to a precision nutrition and many farmers around the country have found that the drought affects foliar the same a normal fert

My feeling it's a build up effect needed. In that the more OM built up from life the lessor the effect of drought.

Every extra 1% of OM in soil holds 20,000 gallons of water.

I'm in a dampish area.

But both at play imo.

Acre.

Oh hell no. Got to keep the white gold flowing

You’re on serious ground tbf say your farm and the farm beside you that bought the land across the way still have seriously green farms. You’ve done of the best land in the country in you’re area imo

No issue with lads slogging away but it’s the speed of expansion without the facilities and slurry storage that has played a big part in landing us where we are now ….Tegasc promoted it ….heavily …load on the cows and worry about everything else later that was the motto

Whaaaat?...Did you hit your head😇

Perennial ryegrass will not grow when temps hit 27 or more. Cocksfoot fescue etc will grow away perfectly, and relish it!

I’ve done extensive trials irrigating perennial english ryegrass, and it doesn’t matter one jot how much water and fert you fire on it, it just won’t grow. I’ve tried liquid urea + irrigation, and it still won’t grow. For that reason our mss swards are based on cocksfoot and fescue…totally gave up on herbs etc because they’re gone in a few years, and produce very little comparing to the deep rooting grasses. I’d include Timothy in the mix instead of the herbs. There’s some decent grazing species of cocksfoot and fescue available now that don’t resemble the varieties that are available to ye. From seeing variety labels on Twitter etc, ye’re being sold varieties that are bred for making hay, and in all honesty they’re absolutely awful…may as well be grazing the ditch. Big downside of the good grazing varieties is that they’re really expensive.

Thing is grazing cocksfoot is high in energy and quite sweet…livestock will shave the ground. Proper grazing cocksfoot won’t be bunchy and overground iykwim. It’ll take a very experienced eye to tell the difference between grazing cocksfoot and perennial ryegrass. I put in the newest varieties (pure) on very dry land last year and the salesman bet me €50 that it’ll stay green in the worst of droughts, I owe him a fiddy after the worst drought on record! It’s still green but obviously not growing. However if I had water to give it I’ve no doubt that it’d grow grass.

Cocksfoot is surprisingly durable and persistent.

Sold a bunch of friesian runner bulls in the mart last week. They were all late January to the 3rd week of February. They averaged €375 a head. I would have probably gotten €20 for them at 3-4 weeks the year gone out. They would have had €40 of milk drank so I reckon they started at -€20 iykwim.

My costs were €100 milk. €100 meal (loads say that is madness but I'll argue that later if needs be). €7 commission, €3 transport, testing, bvd testing, tag, straw, a dose, grass all estimated at €60. They were vaccinated for crypto but would have gotten that before they were sold as calves so I am not counting it either side.

I am getting costs here of €270. So from -€20 I am about €175 better off keeping them unless I am missing something. They were on grass that I cannot get cows to. They weren't even an extra batch of stock as I ran them with the heifer calves.

Feel free to pick my figures apart people. Just to add, I won't be keeping them next year as I have extended cubicles into the shed that I reared them in.

Straw ,hay ,grass ,labour ,worm dose …during spring costs 25/30 euros per calf per week to rear a calf …I got between zero and 95 euro for my Fr bulls in spring selling at an average of 22 days old ….I like rearing calves /cattle but there’s buttons out of rearing them to this stage

also you need to factor in a cost price of selling the calf from your dairy to beef enterprise ….

not criticising but I see lads selling calves /cattle /weanlings blowing about the price they got but they don’t put a relastic price on own labour and full costs of rearing the Ainmal