Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

gave up zero grazing except for short periods of dry weather , i have gone to a 4 or even a 5 cut system trying to make bales of quality stuff over the last 2 years , solids per cow have jumped from 460 to 580/600 , when its wet outside cows getting more wet grass was doing nothing for the cow or my pocket,and its proven such that teagasc have taken interest in what i have achieved making a couple of quick snaps on you tube this year trying to show what is possible , local teagasc have admitted that they were just looking at grass and forgot the silage.

With the price of beef now why would anyone consider dairy. Sucklers the only way to go

just on teagasc, the latest video talks about fat% dropping in second rotation. they said it was basically down to breeding. that buffer feeding or feeding extra meal made no difference. i dont think they mentioned hi clover swards but i presume their trails would have been on swards with clover in them. im feeding 1/2 kg of straw, 1 kg dm of silage and a kg of meal at the barrier. solids didnt drop but mine wouldnt be breaking any records really either. 4 fat and 3-5 pr.

any thoughts?

Yea, sucklers are good at the moment,

Farmers rearing calves hang themselves the first day by giving too much for a poor calf.

started zero grazing here last year and happy enough so far.

The biggest downside is time it takes between getting the grass and drawing slurry back. It saved me big time last year when we didn’t have the grass growth here at home during the summer. We did 560 kgs last year after a disaster of a start with the shite weather leading to a poor peak and me being out of action for a month due to an accident.

Cows doing 31 l 4.15 bf 3.66 pr atm on lush 2nd round grazing and zero grazing with 25% heifers. Milk recorded 2 weeks ago and a good 1/4 of the herd were near or over 40l. If we can keep them going well for the year I’d be hopeful they’ll do near 600 kgs of milk solids.

The biggest thing I see is you need fresh swards. (Goes for grazing too) Old swards are useless. Cows dropped from 3.61 pr to 3.5 pr and lost a litre when I brought in grass off fields with poor perennial grass content

All in all I’m happy enough but I’ve bred a medium sized cow that suits grazing imo. I’m not sure if a more Holstein type cow would suit it.

Calf to beef farmers were getting free calves for years. If they couldn't make it pay maybe it was their fault and not everyone else's.

talking thru there hole on that re fats ….when it comes to nutritional advice I wouldn’t pay much attention to Tegasc etc on that ….tweaked things feeding wise here to stop fats crashing from April in and it’s worked …well into second round tank averaging just over 35 at 4.43 fat 3.61 protein ….8 kg fresh buffer in every evening of maize and 3 kg blend …all in getting over 8 kg nuts/meal

Up the straw to 2kg/hd.
If you could get your hands on oat/spelt/soya hulls, even better again.

What parlour kg are lads giving these days with good grass in front of them?

would see them up and down a bit alright but there's usually a reason . I write the yield in a diary every day and try and find an answer if there are drops . Usually it will be down to grass quality , grass quantity, access to water and I would have some paddocks with older grass varieties that the cows always drop on

They are passing it at the barrier and tipping away at it dawg. They aren't held in the shed so dunno whether they'll eat more themselves.

I listen to them and you might take an odd bit from them. Not a whole pile there

Is there anything to suggest this is actually true, none the less, max stocking rate would be about 3.5 on the milking platform

It's Not difficult to define.

Cows out here since March 1st. A perfect spring. Silage fertiliser out today. About 6 days left in the first round. The only hope of profit in Ireland is from grazed grass. The rest is just chasing your tail imho. A form of vanity I would say actually.