All organic though and not a slurry tank to be seen - oh and a couple of wolf packs to cull the reactors etc.😁😉
Ya, I saw one pee in a river 😳😲
And all the urine splashes we are told are so bad.
In fairness Alaska is a bit bigger than the likes of Cork, so animal density is rather less. The Yukon is rather larger then the Lee too;)
I wonder is this a light-bulb moment for co-ops to stop with their sustainability bulls**t peddled by goverment/teagasc and just concentrate on processing and selling milk
It's pretty clear their is a new message been pushed by our state advisory service that coincides with derogation been finished in 2026
It's like the beef, if you keep producing when prices drop, they price won't rise. Everyone makes decisions based on their own business despite them blaming everyone else when the decision is wrong.
You won't farm unsustainably for very long
You'd be surprise how long lads will last, just consuming assets that were built up over the years. They'll keep pushing on until it's all gone, hoping that next year will be a better year.
There is often a massive overhead to starting up or shutting down an operation. It's not the same as deciding to walk out of one office on a Friday and start with a new employer on the Monday because the former was acting the prick.
If anyone is in the market for dairy stock it may be no harm contact a well known auctioneer in South Wicklow who also sells machinery in online auctions. DQ.
Numbers may be wrong or maybe not. Supposedly 20 herds on the books for January. Some only 3 years milking.
Farmer told me this. There must be some truth in it.
I wouldn't be surprised at relatively recent entrants selling up. Lads got into milking who had come from generations of tillage or mixed with beef/sheep. Probably easy enough to stay motivated when a big cheque coming in at the end of the month. When that starts to dry up, they might start longing for the former easier lifestyle.
What about all the Irish methane that is destroying the planet. Methane doesn't seem to be a problem anywhere else. Get a grip will you.....😂
Methane is gone after 10 years
Try telling that to John gibbons and co...
Lads, the push back has feck all to do with methane. It's anti animal agriculture behind all this shite
100% correct.
GHG and methane was the first stick used to beat livestock farming. That proved too difficult to measure and what measurements were being made didn't back up the cows-are-bad narrative.
So, we move onto water quality and use that as a stick to beat the farmers we don't like.
If it wasn't for farmers themselves fighting back out in the social media world (some of them are on here too), god knows what brain-farts we'd have imposed. The farm orgs are behind the curve again representing us and it's individual farmers who are fighting the various smears.
Haven't heard of any flood leaving in West cork yet .only fella I ve heard locally must be 80 years but I wouldn't be surprised if a few did go .I expect its next year will sort the men from the boys if price doesn't start rising early in the year but I don't think we will see decent price rises until later in the year.
If cows are eating 5kgs of beet and 4 kgs of meal milking 10litres. Would they consume more or less silage than if they were dry in silage only. Doing the sums on milking on
Yep heard the same as that
also heard a farmer rang up looking for a sale and David told him to do it before Christmas if he wanted sone sort of a price for them
Doesn't make much financial milking on if all they have is 10 litres. The only advantage is you would save on silage.
Remember running costs of parlour esb teat dip deteregent maybe the relief milker dont.
Its con acre and lease price finishing alot of lads off lot of leases at 200 ecxpired around here 4 to 5 is being given or demanded putting huge pressure on farmers.Farmers were too heavily reliantnon cheap land rent
Old figures which are prob close if only 10 litres would be 18kgs/dm if milking and 12 if dry. Dependant on cow size. Could use beet to save on silage when dry but remember to counter for minerals. Is the 5kgs dm of beet? If so could cut that back to 3 and silage for dry period maybe would be same as amount of silage their eating while milking?
Gona dry off earlier calvers and milk on late ones. I'm thinking between weight gain on the empties and milk, it'll be a good wage
Why would the cow reduce her food consumption from 18 down to 12 Kgs DM just because she is not milking.
Milking empties and up to 50/55 days pre calving ….anything milking under 10 for a week also goes dry …..on oad over a week now averaging 13 litres ….4 kg meal and bale silage ….we have winter bonuses for December janurary and February as well ….could get beet but have enough good silage ….lactose is 4.45 I might add 1.5 kg maize meal on silage if that drops below 4.4 …..milking through as wouldn’t be shutting parlour for long if dried off pre Christmas ….heifers should be starting from 12 jan on ….and as kev said will put condition on dry cows at same time
Hasn't the the need for the extra dm two screenshots here of a dry cow and milking cow, milking cow is spending nearly 3 times longer a day eating versus the dry cow
Interesting looking graphs. Is that info generated from collars?
Yes but that relates to a cows requirements not her actual feed intake if you feed her ad lib, also as she gets neared to calving her appetite drops.
Do you think a dry cow you are fattening eats less than if you were milking her.
General rule of thumb is 2% of bodyweight, 600kg cow would need 12kg/dm then. Sure they may eat more if on multiple forages or getting extra concentrate but are likely to get overconditioned if incalf and silage is good. Milk production takes a lot more energy
Dry cow is in with milkers been culled just trying to get her up a condition score , so both animals have access to ad-lib tmr plus been feed same concentrates in parlour
Cow manager tags, biggest advantage of them is theirs a temperature sensor built into the tag, it flags up a sick cow with a e-coli infection for instance straight away rather than waiting for rumination/activity to drop
