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Farming Chit Chat II

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Comments

  • #1352
    whelan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,786 ✭✭✭✭whelan1


    Dampintheattic wrote: »
    A question for all you folks. I have a springer, who just calved a BVD positive calf.
    Calf is poor but sucking away.
    The springer herself, is in poor condition compared to her six compatriots. Just does not seem to have thrived. She has been blood tested and I expect will prove positive.

    Question is, do I get rid of her to factory ASAP, or do I feed her on, in expectation of getting a bit of condition on her, and hence a better price?
    Will she respond to feeding in the first place?

    TIA
    if it was me and she was positive she would get gate asap


  • #1353
    bbam
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,408 ✭✭✭bbam


    Hang her high!
    I had a friend had a weanling test as a PI last November after buying it in September.
    He went against vets advice and kept her on to feed up. Around Patricks day he had vet out to put her down as she wasn't putting on condition and was off form every few weeks. He was kicking himself as she ate silage and 2kg a day ration for that time and it was all wasted.
    She is what she is.


  • #1354
    whelan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,786 ✭✭✭✭whelan1


    Bizzum wrote: »
    I've noticed too, with absolute certainty, that a nasty cow at calving can be quite and easily handled the other 51 weeks of the year. In other words, a cow that is normally quiet can be a bitch when she's sick to calve and for a few days after.
    our resident lunatic calved last night , was "reving up her engines" from thursday... went for me when i was bedding the shed... so we where only looking at her from a distance... hope the calf drinks itself


  • #1355
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    1chippy wrote: »
    i could drink it off teaspoons and id still manage to sicken myself

    Have you heard of the AA? :D


  • #1356
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    1chippy wrote: »
    I know one of those guys, caught with feed bills of 5k a week

    Yikes!


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  • #1357
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    redzerologhlen wrote: »
    Good night Irene :D

    photo_zps0c206ee2.jpg
    Congrats on the new arrival. I'm glad you didn't have to intervene ;)


  • #1358
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    whelan1 wrote: »
    our resident lunatic calved last night , was "reving up her engines" from thursday... went for me when i was bedding the shed... so we where only looking at her from a distance... hope the calf drinks itself
    How soon does she settle? They must be a nuisance in the parlour if they keep acting up.


  • #1359
    whelan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,786 ✭✭✭✭whelan1


    just do it wrote: »
    How soon does she settle? They must be a nuisance in the parlour if they keep acting up.
    this is a suckler... should be ok in a few days


  • #1360
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    That's me on boards for today. Have spent/ wasted 25mins on here already and haven't done as much looking through threads as usual :rolleyes:


  • #1361
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    whelan1 wrote: »
    this is a suckler... should be ok in a few days

    Do dairy cows suffer from the same antics?


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  • #1362
    whelan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,786 ✭✭✭✭whelan1


    just do it wrote: »
    Do dairy cows suffer from the same antics?
    not as bad as the angus, they mental.... do be very wary of them


  • #1363
    pakalasa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,552 ✭✭✭pakalasa


    redzerologhlen wrote: »
    I have a muscley sort of a 3 year old lim heifer sick to calf now. How well she waited for such a cnut of a night to do it. A bit wary of her too because her mother has tried to kill me on numerous occasions at calving. I hope to jaysus she calves of her own accord.
    I see in the pic, she has horns aswell. Not good for a budding lunatic. Just wondering, when calving outdoors, what do you do with them drinkling the cow for the first time. If they calf at night, do you just leave them to drink away on their own.


  • #1364
    rancher
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,142 ✭✭✭rancher


    just do it wrote: »
    With the current weather I feel sorry for the lads that have gone for rapid expansion for the post 2015 era. Huge investment and just in time type management factoring getting the cows out in Feb, max stock/ha etc. The Irish weather hasn't changed that much. I recall it being described in National School around 30yrs ago as being "variable", "4 seasons in a day", "no guarantee of a good summer" etc etc. Each decade there has been horrendous years for farming and yet lads don't plan for the contingency of ridiculously bad weather!

    Everyone should know their own area and when to expect growth, last year we had good grass in march but if you grazed it in march, you had nothing nearly till 10th may......in this area anyway
    I put in my sheep six weeks early this year, but I bought six weeks extra feed at christmas rather than hope for an early growth and still have nearly 100 lambed ewes inside to in order to spare grass.
    Also have 80 weaned ewes in and 50 ewe lambs to lamb, and they're in also so there'll be no money in sheep this year....or cattle either I'd say


  • #1365
    Richk2012
    Closed Accounts Posts: 528 ✭✭✭Richk2012


    just do it wrote: »
    That's me on boards for today. Have spent/ wasted 25mins on here already and haven't done as much looking through threads as usual :rolleyes:


    Ah JD you should know that time is never wasted on here .
    Its a learning curve and every days a school day :cool:


  • #1366
    1chippy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,716 ✭✭✭1chippy


    rancher wrote: »
    Everyone should know their own area and when to expect growth, last year we had good grass in march but if you grazed it in march, you had nothing nearly till 10th may......in this area anyway
    I put in my sheep six weeks early this year, but I bought six weeks extra feed at christmas rather than hope for an early growth and still have nearly 100 lambed ewes inside to in order to spare grass.
    Also have 80 weaned ewes in and 50 ewe lambs to lamb, and they're in also so there'll be no money in sheep this year....or cattle either I'd say
    In fairness we have had one of the longest winters i ever remembered. There are a lot of lads out there starting out or just trying to push the profitability of their farm and they have been badly caught. we are just lucky here with thee fact we had a reasonable butt of silage left last year. Most years everything would be out by Paddys day. Its been a long winter and a bad year last year, there were damn all oppurtunities to pull in any sort of quantity or quality feed last year. I cant say i know any farmer who would have left themselves tight on purpose, most were caught short and you have to admit there is a certain amount of hope needed with farming especially with what we have seen in the last year.


  • #1367
    poor farmer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭poor farmer


    Damo810 wrote: »
    Must have serious numbers. But we were talking today, if some of the dairy lads are feeding 8Kg meal a day at €300 a ton=€0.30 per Kg so 2.40 per cow per day. €240 for a herd of 100 cows per DAY! €1680 a week, before you take into account any sort of roughage or the fert they more than likely spread on their land..

    It's not that bad ,a 100 cows man is selling €700 worth of milk per day


  • #1368
    Bodacious
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,274 ✭✭✭Bodacious


    whelan1 wrote: »
    our resident lunatic calved last night , was "reving up her engines" from thursday... went for me when i was bedding the shed... so we where only looking at her from a distance... hope the calf drinks itself

    I think we kidding ourselves keeping crazy ones.my neighbour has one SA x cow and best calf price of his herd every year etc but totally unmanageable and wild dangerous at/after calving .. In all her antics this year she walked on front leg of fine char yellow bull and lost him, coupled with 2 vet visits and 2 weeks trying to feed him milk her she prob cost him 1200 this year .. Takes alot of extra E70-E120 extra on the price of a calf to cover herself ... Hang the bitch and be done !


  • #1369
    stanflt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,954 ✭✭✭stanflt


    poor farmer wrote: »
    It's not that bad ,a 100 cows man is selling €700 worth of milk per day

    At this time of year it' more like 1200


  • #1370
    hugo29
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,267 ✭✭✭hugo29


    Just had vet with cow to take cleaning, it's the cow that had gone down last week,won't eat any roughage at all, picks at it, demolishes a bucket of dairy nuts though, vet reckons I should take calf off her, she doesn't have a lot of milk but I am supplementing calf with 2 bottle feeds a day, don't really want to take calf off her, she is thin but hope to let her out, also thinking of throwing a
    Horse blanket on her for a while till she gets stronger, any thoughts


  • #1371
    redzerologhlen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,329 ✭✭✭redzerologhlen


    pakalasa wrote: »
    I see in the pic, she has horns aswell. Not good for a budding lunatic. Just wondering, when calving outdoors, what do you do with them drinkling the cow for the first time. If they calf at night, do you just leave them to drink away on their own.

    She has 2 butts alright. She was done too late when she was a calf and they still grew after. We were going to take them off her a month ago but I thought she was too close to calving but I will do her the next day shes in the crush. I would normally stay watching them until I see them find the tit, If they havent anything got after 4 hours we would bring them in and do whatever has to be done with them but its rare enough it happens. To be honest its more of a problem with the older cows that have biggish tits/bad udders.


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  • #1372
    mf240
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,900 ✭✭✭mf240


    hugo29 wrote: »
    Just had vet with cow to take cleaning, it's the cow that had gone down last week,won't eat any roughage at all, picks at it, demolishes a bucket of dairy nuts though, vet reckons I should take calf off her, she doesn't have a lot of milk but I am supplementing calf with 2 bottle feeds a day, don't really want to take calf off her, she is thin but hope to let her out, also thinking of throwing a
    Horse blanket on her for a while till she gets stronger, any thoughts

    That's not good to be eating no roughage did you mention that to vet?


  • #1373
    whelan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,786 ✭✭✭✭whelan1


    give the cow some chanatol -from vet- this will give her more energy... is she on antibiotics after holding the cleanings, did he give her a wash out, also a shot of estrumate to clean her out would be no harm...


  • #1374
    Milton09
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 453 ✭✭Milton09


    whelan1 wrote: »
    our resident lunatic calved last night , was "reving up her engines" from thursday... went for me when i was bedding the shed... so we where only looking at her from a distance... hope the calf drinks itself

    We had an AA heifer off an SIX cow that was a complete nutter, was going to keep her for a cow but the father said, hump that, I dont want to be dealing with her if she calves and your away at work, put her in the freezer - so we did, we've been having the best sunday dinners ever for the past 3 months now !:)


  • #1375
    hugo29
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,267 ✭✭✭hugo29


    mf240 wrote: »
    That's not good to be eating no roughage did you mention that to vet?

    Yea, he maintained that she may be sick and appetite may be off, keep her on nuts and see if can get her some hay, going to try some ivy as well


  • #1376
    quadboy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 472 ✭✭quadboy


    Spotsprayed a few rushes over a week ago with mcpa, first time using it, but the grass around them has turned yellow as if I had used roundup, is this normal


  • #1377
    redzerologhlen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,329 ✭✭✭redzerologhlen


    quadboy wrote: »
    Spotsprayed a few rushes over a week ago with mcpa, first time using it, but the grass around them has turned yellow as if I had used roundup, is this normal

    Your mix was too strong.


  • #1378
    quadboy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 472 ✭✭quadboy


    hlf a litre to 15 litres of water I used


  • #1379
    redzerologhlen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,329 ✭✭✭redzerologhlen


    quadboy wrote: »
    hlf a litre to 15 litres of water I used

    When you spot spraying you are always going to put on more spray then if you passed over the clump of rushes using booms, It only takes a very small bit of spray to kill them. The same thing has happened to me before when I have spot sprayed with a knapsack .


  • #1380
    quadboy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 472 ✭✭quadboy


    redzerologhlen wrote: »
    When you spot spraying you are always going to put on more spray then if you passed over the clump of rushes using booms, It only takes a very small bit of spray to kill them. The same thing has happened to me before when I have spot sprayed with a knapsack .
    Ah that's why so and I was even thinking at the time I was spraying on too much, how long could it be before the grass recovers.


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  • #1381
    redzerologhlen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,329 ✭✭✭redzerologhlen


    quadboy wrote: »
    Ah that's why so and I was even thinking at the time I was spraying on too much, how long could it be before the grass recovers.

    With the level of growth we have at the moment who knows :D Mcpa stunts the grass more so the killing it even when it turns yellow from my experience.


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