Selenium is the big one, phosphorus a small bit aswell. Wouldn’t be a heavy meal feeder here, generally about 750kg fed per cow. Can you spec different minerals in meal? How does it fair out cost wise compared to doing it through water?
Beef is back
You can do. Id use a high spec protected mineral pack during breeding be a few euro more than the usual mineral in the feed what is the selenium causing. As for phosphorus thats down to soil deficiency poor pre calving minerals or just hungry cows
It was only yesterday that we completed our first rotation of the grazing platform here. Some going when we are heading for June 1st 😂😂 have the main herd in by night still. Going to get them out by night with the heatwave. It’s easy see how Tirlan suppliers have almost double the milk per supplier than Kinisla’s. If the average Tirlan fella had land as bad as this, they’d be hiding the ropes from him 🤣
I'm farming near Killarney and have our wettest fields grazed twice and some are topped already. Took bales off a few acres to finish the first rotation at the end of April. Never once considering housing them last week, even though we got a lot of rain. Can't believe it's been that bad for you.
If you have the exact same type of land in killkenny/wexford as in Kerry but the average rainfall in Kerry will make farming it severally more difficult.
I guess most of the land in killkenny is also better the best of land in Kerry .A share of big dairy farms in Kerry would be best suited to forestery ,the wet years anyway!!
I often hear lads blowing about crossbreds a d how hard it is to kill them as a fella said to me one day. O'Neils seem to get alot of trouble with theirs. They’re always putting in bolus's and warm drinks after calving and the like. They’re buffer feeding them with beet and soya mix then too. Wouldn't be my kind of cow anyway.
As a new entrant im trying to take in as much info as possible and often wondered about oneill's cow type,are crossbreds not more suited to low cost grass based production?Surly with all the buffer feeding holstein x freisian would be more productive?..or am I missing something?
Any progress with your set up?
I think they all give trouble regardless of breeding!!
You're right to take in as much info as you can. No one size fits all but I remember someone here years ago saying that no matter where you are in the country you'll do well to go a year without some form of buffer feeding with drought or wet weather. Does the quality of the buffer feed have more a bearing than the breed of cows your feeding?
i would have been of the opinion that milk supply will plummet here in kerry.. but now im not so sure.. around my area this spring.. 2 lads have practically doubled the size of milking platform by taking on land bounding them.. and 2 more farmers have bought land bounding them doubling the size of their milking platform as well.. each farmer has a successor in their early 20's or 30's to continue the operation.. 3 of those 4 blocks of land that have been leased/bought havent had cows milked off them in 20yrs or more and the other had cows but was lightly stocked…
Kerry/Kinisla collect 1.2billion litres/yr.. it would require a drop in supply of 200million litres just to go back to 1billion litres… i cant see that happening anytime soon…
I dont know about particular areas but in my area there's a lot of lads getting out in the more marginal areas and ground types
Yea,slow but steady.Hoping to start digging the end of August
Down here near skibbereen would be like that. The "one man band" type farmers are getting old, and hard to justify expanding. While the company farms, don't blink at 500/acre or 15k to buy land near them.
It makes sense, if you have the facilities, machinery and labour in place, another 100 cows is no big deal.
If holstein was the best breed wed all be buffer feeding growing crops there not theres very few at that craic for gd reason too much cost and work and marginal more profit if any.
So your a crossbred man?
Holstein Here, no buffer feeding, no growing crops. 1 case of milk fever in 10 years. No bolus, No hot drink after calving. No udders dragging along the ground.
If I could give you one bit of advice don't spare the ration.maybe to use an analogy from machinery, ration to a herd of cows is like grease to machine.you can be sparing away but you ll have an awful life.
Id be budgeting 1000-1500kg per cow
fair play to you …savage going …everyone to there own tho as to how they manage there cows
Give to them when they calve
Give it to them when the weather is bad
Give to them when they are bulling
Give it to them when they are inside
The bits in between you can do what you like
Indeed. That was a reply to dairy man that said you need all those things to have holsteins. I'm simply saying that is not the case.
What would you feed on average?
Fair play lad if you can manage pure holsteins on just grass and ration but theres very few can do it.
By the sounds of it there being fed heavy all the time
1.5 plus.i ll explain something though running over 4 stocking rate at home so I have to feed more.only 45 % of land available for grazing but I have found life alot easier since I moved to higher stocking rate
you can manage the high ebi etc ones and they’ll rock along at a certain level last 2 years for me has been. Eye opening with quality of genetics coming through from international sires and what they are capable of once fed accordingly I’ve tagged on another 550 litres milk and over 50 kgms per cow ,feeding about 2.2 tonne and small buffer at evening milking all year
Far easier manage cows and grass at higher sr
What would be the ideal stocking rate on average?..id be looking to run 80 cows on a 70 acre grazing block.Silage and replacements grazed elsewhere
