Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Load it all.into the cow box and off to tge local dump. About 350/ ton to dump stuff. I went with two loads in the last ten days. We are replacing the kitchen and got rid of the Stanley range.

Usually take a load once a year latte autumn or early spring

A lad in our group couldn't wait for his first cut to grow this year. It only half filled the pit and has a load of nitrogen in it. He went back out with 80 units of fertiliser plus slurry and the second cut was light too. That cost him the extra fertiliser plus 170 euro per acre for the harvester plus labour and opening/recovering his pit. He's trying for a third cut no but it isn't growing with the dry weather. More fertiliser wasted.

He's after running out of fertiliser allowance now, he's buffering the cows during summer and the advice is to buy straw or PK to stretch the silage. Some bollixing if you ask me anyway. Ya, it's better quality but at what cost. And any irish farmer feeding PK needn't open their mouth about origin green or grass fed. I won't be feeding it here.

He's on the lookout to buy standing silage now too or to buy bales at 40 euro. He was at the same bollixing last year when the second cut didn't grow due to the cold/dry. It's all a big price to pay for an early first cut.

I don't cut mine usually until the June bank holiday. Fertiliser wouldn't be out early enough anyway. Biggest problem I see is that I have a long wait for aftergrass. I have alot of surplus bales made this year and second cut of aftergrass from the outfarm. I have about 16 more acres of surplus to take off the milking block next week.

I think that's a nationwide saying. It's the person that doesn't make enough that goes broke.

Beat that ....

She looks fooked

I would not bet on it probably a bit shook after the three days. She is a big cow and in net energy loss after the three days. Bring her back to average 65%of that for a 300 day milking year it's 75 litres a day or 22300 per year. Physically she is a huge cow. Grain and ration are cheap at present. 80 such cows running st 10% less than the 22300 yield would deliver 1.6 million litres or nearly 800k euro this year.

Admittedly they would only be walking from the milking parlour to the feedface and then to there cubicle

Does anyone here use whole crop in the diet for cows ? I was offered bales of it at €40\ bale. Am I better just to stick with good silage ?

No diet feeder. Barley and peas undersown with grass. Do you feed it in the winter or spring time ?