teagasc

Min

John_F wrote: »

Agree with you here, i see you have your location at north Kilkenny, how is the weater up there, like would the lads in the greenfield site still be thawing out the milking machine now and again? They are meant to have alot of grass but this is because nothing was grazed before christmas as no stock there, but if it had been grazed before christmas I really wouldnt like to be there listening to the mooing of hungry cows, we cant rely on grass growth here its either too wet or as this year was too cold, we must supplement grass especially in spring, Curtins empty rate in 09 was the realisation of this!

Sorry for hijacking the thread, we are not with teagasc, In my opinion they chop and change too much i.e. a few years ago it was feed the cow, get a diet feeder etc etc, also the advisors have no choice and are limited in what they can say, the research is based on an all grass system and more or less copying NZ and so the researchers more or less must go with this theory.

I had water pipes frozen earlier this week so I can only imagine what it is like at the Greenfields site, that type of milking parlour is just crazy, even my indoors one which never freezes thanks to the cows being nearby did during the winter and what hardship.
Greenfields with loads of heifers calving and frozen milking facilities, sounds like utter hardship.
Any grass around is burnt and if we followed Teagasc's advice there would be even less later on.
Where I live it's high ground and would be later for spring grass compared to the lower ground around the city area and where the Greenfield site is.
Teagasc in Kilkenny think we all live on lower ground and you get the newsletter and its like what grass, one could let them out but it wouldn't be long before they would be back in with no grass growing.

Anyway an open styled milking parlour in one of the coldest places in winter, they better like ice.