Dairy Farming General

jaymla627 wrote: »

Gdt down 5.9%, with milk powder down nearly 11% getting more likely milks heading the wrong side of 25 cent a litre

not looking good :-(

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Yes agree you can do them yourself and have done them ourselves.
its about seeing also if you are as efficient as possible as you can be now before more cows and more loans.
would it pay me more to milk more cows or perfect my system and them move forward
But tbh you can't beat bringing someone fresh in where new ideas are batted around.
It's about giving you the discipline too to sit down and do these projections and revisited them every few months if things have changed

We did one 2 yrs ago and haven't looked at it since

Very true, an outside perspective can point out flaws in any plan, it's also good to have some one removed from the farm to argue out the pros and cons with.
Don't understand the problem, advise is there be it paid or free, but no one should move forward without an outside perspective

jaymla627 wrote: »

Gdt down 5.9%, with milk powder down nearly 11% getting more likely milks heading the wrong side of 25 cent a litre

That is the scariest post I've read for a long time, not joking. Such a huge drop at a time when a lot of us were hoping it was about to bottom out. It's gonna be a long winter for any heavily debted guys.

jaymla627 wrote: »

Gdt down 5.9%, with milk powder down nearly 11% getting more likely milks heading the wrong side of 25 cent a litre

Feck it. May cancle the cruise and send back the merc.

Great time to buy cows.

browned wrote: »

question for anyone in moorepark today. at the first stand Padraig French made the claim that for every 1 tonne of feed purchased last year (on 74 pasturebase farms) the farmer ended up making a loss of 126 euros. none of our group questioned him on how he worked out the loss, did any subsequent group get an answer?

Yes, that one's bugging me too. I asked another advisor about it later on the day, but he gave me a v wishy washy answer about all the costs that increase with high SR, didn't stack up at all. We should've grilled Dr P when we had the chance!

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

This is probably the one which stuck with the most, incredible results from clover in the clonakilty trials, I've been v dismissive of clover for a while now, but this would make u sit up and pay some attention. They expect to get up to 60 kgs/ms per cow more from the high clover awards this yr. Wow!

What works in Moorepark re clover swards considering how good the ground is and higher soil temps they get say compared to lads nearer the north then south and on more challenging ground would be night and day....
Trying to graze out clover swards in the spring giving how open the swards do be on wet ground would be a clusterf**k, would be questioning to why the other group is preforming so badly m.s wise

browned wrote: »

question for anyone in moorepark today. at the first stand Padraig French made the claim that for every 1 tonne of feed purchased last year (on 74 pasturebase farms) the farmer ended up making a loss of 126 euros. none of our group questioned him on how he worked out the loss, did any subsequent group get an answer?

Yes a few in our group questioned it. Answers very vague. One guy even asked does the figure still stack up at when grass is being utilised fully even when extra meal if brought onto farm.
Padraig stated that all other costs go up when you bring on extra meal even if grass is fully utilised. Everyone was puzzled by the answer & I still can't make sense of the figure of -126

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

This trial is in clonakilty, but I agree with u and said it to them today that they need to extend the trial to wetter land. The trial in Moorepark is arguably more impressive as they're growing the same tonnes with 150 units of vs 250units on grass swards. Too many strong points for us to just dismiss it.[/QUOTE

Major downside of clover based swards would be weed control, in that clover safe sprays cost a fortune and are usually a lot less effective then non - clover safe ones, a trip to any good organic dairy farmer would be of alot more benefit then listening to teagasc mini expirement as these guys whole operation usually centres around having good productive clover swards...
They aren't exactly re - inventing the wheel re the role of clover in dairy systems

browned wrote: »

Went looking at the book for some bedtime reading and it's a tonne extra meal fed a cow. If that's on top of the 500kgs they recommend you could see the logic in costs rising but

But can u see the logic for feeding it? Or was it just horsed into them to prove a point?

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

This trial is in clonakilty, but I agree with u and said it to them today that they need to extend the trial to wetter land. The trial in Moorepark is arguably more impressive as they're growing the same tonnes with 150 units of vs 250units on grass swards. Too many strong points for us to just dismiss it.

Could well save our bacon if Europe decides to bring in stricter nitrogen use limits!

Moorepark sounded like a right day anyway but by fook acdc were worth missing it for!'.some performance for a bunch of auld lads!!
Read last few bits Re the loosing 250 per cow if feeding over a tonne of meal ,love to know what there basing it on .im feeding over a tonne average,growing and utilising large amounts of grass with high volumes of milk and kg of solids with fertility .i ain't loosing money.is this one of Jackie kennedys attempts at dairy advice ???.stinks of lazy Tegasc advice that they read from a kiwi rag and a one size fits all approach .ditto the clover ,maby there getting results but clover aint worth a ****e in spring or back end on most Irish farms .tegasc and moorepark are great organisations ,moorepark in particular but a lot of stuff they come out with needs to be seriously questioned

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Yes, that one's bugging me too. I asked another advisor about it later on the day, but he gave me a v wishy washy answer about all the costs that increase with high SR, didn't stack up at all. We should've grilled Dr P when we had the chance!

It's a classical statistical error, an illusory correlation.

Correlation does not imply causation.

The inference we draw (are meant to draw?) is that the tonne of feed led directly to the loss. Without seeing the raw data it is difficult to be precise, but that is most unlikely to be the case.


Edit: - For example, if you wish, you can use the same figures to make the opposite point - pasture based systems are *dangerously* sensitive to variations in grass utilisation and stocking rate and target profitability is achievable in highly optimised conditions. Put another way - if for whatever reason your pasture falls short, profits will melt away instantly to a loss of €126 for every tonne of ration needed to compensate. The need to adjust stocking rate instantly to match grass will impact both fixed costs and future year capacity. In other words pasture based dairying is essentially an inflexible, high risk, business model and assets (grass) should be priced accordingly.

freedominacup wrote: »

Google results bias or publication bias for an insight. Publication bias probably not totally applicable as virtually no teagasc "research" is published, a two page spread in the rag doesn't count as publications. There wouldn't be much chance of further funding for more research if they found that clover delivered no benefits or negative results.

Surely the fertiliser companies would have a real vested interest in this, as they stand to lose the most if these clover trials prove to be successful in the long term.
Can't understand a lot of the Teagasc slamming here sometimes. We have a superb research centre, arguably one of the best in the world, who is trying to sell NOTHING. Yet guys love having a go at them. Fair enough their trials and systems aren't for everyone, but their not forcing anyone to implement them.