Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

if you know your cows you’ll know fairly quick during milking is one is off form. Bar the heifers I could tell you what a cows number was if you just described her to me

I think it's essential to see them coming in or out once a day minimum

Most Farmers give them fresh grass after every milking. It doesn't take long to move the wire while the cows are strolling in.

I tried the 36hr thing and it was fine but the cows became very hard to manage. Wouldn't come into the parlour. Wouldn't eat nuts in the parlour so I had to get a bucket and pick them up before the next row. They were do full of grass and packed up in the parlour they kept sh1tting. One cow got bad bloat, had to call the vet.

I know of very very few that allocate grass in 12 hour blocks …majority of my paddocks are 36 hours …they are buffer fed too…don’t have any of issues you outline

More Traditional around here maybe.

I'd say you're probably right but that's the way it is around here. We must love the hardship. Most lads do day/night paddocks too.

Pure bollix of a job. It's like two herds and it slows down recovery. Just nice to have the cows nearer to the parlour for the morning and lads do be mixing aftergrass by day with normal grass by night or vice/versa. Alot to be said for a smaller / flat milking block.

Definitely can’t see the point of fresh grass after each milking. Not only is it extra labour for no reward, it is restricting cows ability to produce milk. It runs the risk of misjudging the correct amount of grass. If you misjudge the 24 to 36 hour grazing it will only be the last few hours will be wrong. In the 24/36 system if they eat too much grass and don’t finish their nuts it’s win win!

At the moment 24 to 36 hours grazing with maybe 1 kg of meal is surely a good option in the best year weather wise any one of us has ever farmed in?

At a community AD plant plant consultation this week, a developer rep said "its proposed that ireland will lose derogation at the end of 2026" (accidental verbiage, or inside knowledge who knows), but that AD plants will allow farmers to stay above 170N by exporting to the plant. I don't recall hearing about this nitrates potential?

Ah Sure, all those lads will have the early grazing photos up on twitter/X. Can't have it every way.

They are definitely in favour of dero going they will be the only game in town in certain areas with the price they are quoting for land rentals …. Just to grow grass .... none of them stack up from an environmental point of view. no more than a large majority of the electric cars in the world.which will never be less pollution than an ice vehicle

What do they tend to quote per ac?

One thing I don't understand is they say they will reduce the need for chemical fertilizer. But they're stripping the land of P & K with multiple cuts, and the digestate just has some nitrogen and no P & K worth returning to the land. So isn't it increasing the P & K chemical usage to balance the soil? And considering multiple cuts (more than a livestock farm would), wouldn't they need to horse the chemical nitrogen out also?

What went wrong in the Kildare receivership case anyone know

There's a big push by officialdom to increase the tillage in this area.

Officialdom (local councils) are using soft power to put pressure on the livestock producers to switch. Officialdom though see an increasing tillage area as somewhere to spread human sludge from the sewage plants on the rivers. Farmer plants are pushing this in saying it's only about displacing imports from south america. They are saying the grain from here will be better than from SA. Except the grain from SA most likely will not be grown on ground spread with human sludge. The problem in sludge is the PFAS (forever chemicals). There's land here that's been receiving this for years. Guinness won't take grain from land spread with sludge except the gov here approves it going to animal feed.

There was a documentary in the US about a dairy farmer that was taking in sludge in the 80's and 90's and just for his own health sake and a wonder of soil health. Tested the ground for PFAS. The EPA there are not doing it as they don't want to know. He tested himself and it came back in the clouds. The dairy stopped taking his milk and the gov depopulated his herd and declared the land could no longer go for food production. His neighbours who were also taking sludge are still producing food as they didn't test themselves and there was no laboratory to inform the government. It's a case of see no evil, hear no evil.

The government here want more land for sludge and if someone lets the cat out of the bag and tests for PFAS. Then the crops from that land will be limited to the Anaerobic digestors. Whoever owns that land will be over a barrel though in only having that one outlet. And if that farmer in the US was told your land can never be in food production till 200 years time when these chems will be gone from the soil.

The best money you’ll spend this year. The estimated pay back on a new one used to be two years. A good one from DoneDeal would be paid for in less than a year.