Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

Injuryprone wrote: »

Don't think there's any withdrawal with buscopan, least that's what my vet told me anyway when I queried it earlier on in the summer. Leaflet doesn't give a time

its not licensed for milking cows, was clear yesterday evening when i tested the milk

Milked out wrote: »

Article in journal re supplementing spring calving cows. They quoted research from.responses in adequate and inadequate grass supply scenarios which is fine bar the fact the info from the adequate supply scenario was gathered in 92. Dunno bout anyone else but one would like to think genetics have improved in the intervening 23 years and that info should have been gathered in the same calender year at leaSt with a note of grazing conditions to give a better idea of responses

I alway like to feed cows well from on. Keeps lactose up . Keeps them milking and means they are in good order at drying off and can get just silage.


Most importantly they wouldnt bother their hole coming in for me if i cut out meal

don't know how related this is to anything but a farmers lifestyle. was talking to a dairy farmer recently, milking 100 cows. three kids under ten. his wife works also. they get up at seven. gets kids ready for school. herself leaves for work at half eight. he brings kids to school for ten past nine. comes home and milks. parlour washed down around eleven. goes about his few jobs for the day. collects kids at three. does homework etc. herself comes home at five, they have dinner. most evenings theres some breed of an outing, sports, dancing, kids party. kids go to bed around half eight. off out to milk again. back in house just after ten. bed eleven. didn't actually ask what he does for the summer. he said when the kids get too cool for hanging around with him he'll bring the routine back to some normality.
id consider this fella a good operator, he seems happy that he's giving his family a good start. suppose there is a flexibility that farming offers.

visatorro wrote: »

don't know how related this is to anything but a farmers lifestyle. was talking to a dairy farmer recently, milking 100 cows. three kids under ten. his wife works also. they get up at seven. gets kids ready for school. herself leaves for work at half eight. he brings kids to school for ten past nine. comes home and milks. parlour washed down around eleven. goes about his few jobs for the day. collects kids at three. does homework etc. herself comes home at five, they have dinner. most evenings theres some breed of an outing, sports, dancing, kids party. kids go to bed around half eight. off out to milk again. back in house just after ten. bed eleven. didn't actually ask what he does for the summer. he said when the kids get too cool for hanging around with him he'll bring the routine back to some normality.
id consider this fella a good operator, he seems happy that he's giving his family a good start. suppose there is a flexibility that farming offers.

My evening milking times have got later and later as my kids have got a little older.
Will often spend some time with them around 6ish most evenings when they're having their evening meal, and then maybe bring them for the cows or yesterday we spent 20 mins picking blackberries!
This generally means I'm not finished most nights til 930 or after, but I have no problem with that as it won't be forever, and spending times with toddlers is priceless!

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Anyone feeding rolled oats to springing autumn calvers?
Dad is on about it here. Says he always used to do it

older generation used to do it here aswell, don't know why

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Anyone feeding rolled oats to springing autumn calvers?
Dad is on about it here. Says he always used to do it

is it not adding another cost ? I assume you got on ok with out it other years?

we always give oats to calving cows, start them 2/3 weeks prior to calving we find makes a huge difference, 4 autumn calvers here already none assisted they blow the calves out with the oats
an extra cost but makes calving easier on the cow/heifer

Timmaay wrote: »

we were talking about staff/relief milkers afew days ago, I trained in a local young lad with the parlour here yday evening to cover milkings, his dad has a dairy farm also, and he's quite keen. his only experience outside of his own farm is a summer job milking on a large farm in kk, but even still he had zero prbs at all, very well clued in. I'll have no issues with letting him on with it in the future, have done a deal with him that we are both happy with and it's considerable cheaper than a potentially very unreliable frs milker ha.

Just stopped in here to post an update on our staff issues.

Young fella who sprained his ankle whose father owns a 600ha beef, sheep and dairy operation has now been told not to come back to work until he gets a medical plan in place in conjunction with his gp.

Told the boss's wife if he gets stung by a bee he has ' under two minutes to live'. Good for them they called him on this crap that was never brought up in his interviews and contract discussions. He has been told not to come back to work until he has three epi pens, one on his person, one at home and one at the parlour as we have four hives going on the farm from now to the end of season. We've basically accepted that he will be leaving unless he seriously surprises us. The state of his accommodation that he shares with our other new worker has forced our sharemilker to inspect the house on a scheduled weekly basis. It's an 80 year old house I lived in for almost two years and passed with an A grade from a property manager during my residence.

2nd lad who is brand new to dairying is coming on in leaps and bounds. Milking is improving phenomenally day by day, speed, observing cows and enquring about grass measuring etc. Starting to show that attitude is much more important than coming from a farming background in my opinion.

To draw the whole thing together the boss and I have agreed to come up with a training programme for staff from health and safety all the way up to grass management if they are interested and want to learn. Just what you need this season, learning a lot of lessons early before I think about managing staff in the future.

Good points about the farm in the past few days, production rising up to 19.3 litres per cow, 1.6ms per day. Still holding back for grass growth to kick in but can't wait to let the cows have it when we've enough grass to start cutting down the silage. Also sounds like we've confirmed a 100 tonne contract for PKE to help us get there.

Big problems here yesterday evening. Cows went into very lush grass yesterday morning and bringing them in I knew something wasn't right. Two were down and not able to get up and about ten of them were scouring something shocking. I was buffering them with hay but I didn't get a chance to put in a bale yesterday morning. Got a few bottles of calcium into the downers along with baking soda and scour powders while waiting for the vet and he put calcium into the vein. And got up yesterday evening around 11pm. The rest of the herd were put onto a bare paddock with a bale of hay. So much for minimal work on a Sunday.

How much electricity (measured in kwh I suppose) would it take to run a parlour? Something cheap and cheerful with say 6 units and maybe 40 milkers.