Farming Chit Chat

Richk2012

porter shark wrote: »

nice stuff rich. whats the breeding?

Hows things PS , the 3 cows in the pictures are Blue X Simmental/Fresian . The 3 calves are heifers , two by Ballyfinn Borat , and one by Boherad Bullseye both from Dovea .
Three cows back in calf to blues , two inseminated to PG Canadian Club , and one to VDV (dovea).

Richk2012

johnpawl wrote: »

Richk2012 wrote: »

Got the first few cows and calves out to grass yesterday after a clear test

Quality stock there. What age are the calves?

Thanks jp , two of them are jus gone 6 months . And the best one of them 3 is 4and half months .

leg wax

Richk2012 wrote: »

johnpawl wrote: »

Thanks jp , two of them are jus gone 6 months . And the best one of them 3 is 4and half months .

just trying to compare, what weight are they, around 230 kilo or more.just looked again 280 kilo?

Richk2012

leg wax wrote: »

Richk2012 wrote: »

just trying to compare, what weight are they, around 230 kilo or more.just looked again 280 kilo?

Yea Id say the two older heifers are touchin 280 , id hope anyway :rolleyes: . Them along with the other autumn calves ate ad lib meal throughout the winter up until about 6 weeks ago . I had to restrict them on it eventually as you couldnt keep it to them . Grass and milk is the diet for the summer now

johnpawl

were they easily calved? what is your plan for them?

Muckit

Richk2012 wrote: »

Got the first few cows and calves out to grass yesterday after a clear test

Smashing stock there Rich. You must have the shed well bedded, I've never seen cattle so clean out of the shed!

snowman707

Richk2012 wrote: »

Hope they are all well and everything going smoothly .
Just had a ewe after lambing triplets and after realising she has only one spin :mad: .
Lambing is just about over with 9 ewes left , with 8 twins and a triplet . No adoption cases on the horizon so ..
A great strong 4 year old ewe wit 3 super lambs .
I checked all the ewes closely twice last autumn for mastitis when culling ............obviously not that close ?

same here we checked all before mating yet had 4 lamb down on 1 spin :mad:

big round up in the morning reckon we must have about 50 to 60 lambs ready for factory with possibly 8 to 10 gone over heavy

pakalasa

Not farming related, but i had to post it....:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWqCLwJf5fo&feature=related

Muckit

pakalasa wrote: »

Not farming related, but i had to post it....:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWqCLwJf5fo&feature=related[/QUOTE]

We've all been there, well I have

vanderbadger

monsoon season seems to have kicked off here..sigh..

Grecco

vanderbadger wrote: »

monsoon season seems to have kicked off here..sigh..

Yea, had a good summer though, ah well back to the rain

johngalway

vanderbadger wrote: »

monsoon season seems to have kicked off here..sigh..

It was needed here. Not in a general sense, but I put out fert around the 21st and could still see it fairly well before the rain. The dew done damn all to it.

Now, as long as it knows when to stop....

Richk2012

Muckit wrote: »

Smashing stock there Rich. You must have the shed well bedded, I've never seen cattle so clean out of the shed!

Thanks muckit , yea both cattle sheds are cleaned out once a week no matter what else happens around the place . If the land is dry enough it goes straight into the spreader , if not it goes into the pit and left to rot for mowed ground in summer , and the calves have a creep area at the back of sheds so they are always clean enough .
I feed the cattle silage in a concrete yard beside the sheds , saves an awful amount of straw for bedding . They do most of their dunging with their heads in the feeder

Richk2012

johnpawl wrote: »

were they easily calved? what is your plan for them?

I had to jack the youngest calf of those three , i was with the other two calving but no problems , managed themselves .
Im not quite sure what the plan is yet , bring them on until september or so and sell them as strong weaners id imagine .

Birdnuts

vanderbadger wrote: »

monsoon season seems to have kicked off here..sigh..

Its looking increasingly like the coldest, wettest April for at least a decade - the weather gods were always going to make us pay for the record breaking warmth and dryness of the past several months!!:(

johngalway

Birdnuts wrote: »

and dryness(

Not on my planet it wasn't

Birdnuts

johngalway wrote: »

Not on my planet it wasn't

Twas rough enough allright around Christmas - and I know just how bad last summer was along the Western Sea-board having the small holding up in Erris. But Jan, Feb and March have been as good as anyone could dare hope. Just hope any bad spell now doesn't last much past April - don't think I could take another rubbish summer:mad::(

bogman_bass

in my experience, a good april nearly leads to bad weather round silage time so I'll forgive a bit of bad weather now

leg wax

just in the door from been up in county leitrim looking at part bulls, jesus lads yea really have perfected the art of growing rushes up there:eek:.

bbam

leg wax wrote: »

just in the door from been up in county leitrim looking at part bulls, jesus lads yea really have perfected the art of growing rushes up there:eek:.

Indeed.. With work I occasionally head up west Cavan way and can only describe some of the rush farms as grewsome. Take bad land and then neglect it, not a great combination at all.. We're over east Cavan and I thought we had it bad..

I sometimes wonder if there should be legislation against letting land get so bad with rush.. I know their not noxious weeds, but Jesus they don't half take over the place..

johngalway

bbam wrote: »

I sometimes wonder if there should be legislation against letting land get so bad with rush.. I know their not noxious weeds, but Jesus they don't half take over the place..

There absolutely should be. They could give it a rest with a lot of the other nonsense and do something a bit practical like that. I know they're a scourge but they can be controlled.

I remember a guy one time taking myself and a friend to a field at night to look for foxes. When I saw it I started laughing, sure we wouldn't have seen a herd of elephants in it never mind a fox.

On a more sour note my left welly got torpedoed below the waterline tonight, I'm taking on water Time to find out if the Stormsure stuff works

C0N0R

It's that dry out here we have had to turn the irrigation back on which is a pain, but could be worse could be to wet. Booked flights home for Xmas yesterday, mother is delighted!

reilig

leg wax wrote: »

just in the door from been up in county leitrim looking at part bulls, jesus lads yea really have perfected the art of growing rushes up there:eek:.

Erm, that's actually biofuel

People won't be laughing when half of the electricity needs of the country are supplied by the natural crop of our little county :D:D

vanderbadger

leg wax wrote: »

just in the door from been up in county leitrim looking at part bulls, jesus lads yea really have perfected the art of growing rushes up there:eek:.

thought you bought one there recently?

Man of Aran

bbam wrote: »

Indeed.. With work I occasionally head up west Cavan way and can only describe some of the rush farms as grewsome. Take bad land and then neglect it, not a great combination at all.

Might be Celtic Bamboo ....label it so & find a new business opportunity, export it at a premium as organic Panda food!
We no longer have a Tiger to feed so might as well feed the Bears!;)

leg wax

vanderbadger wrote: »

thought you bought one there recently?

yes i did but looking with another man.

johngalway

Took a walk around my perimeter today looking for any gaps in the walls a fox might squeeze in, found a few :eek: Had it in mind to weigh down a post that the wire had raised up off the top of the wall about 18 inches. So I got my big stone, roped it up to the bottom wire and went for the bar to give it a tap down. Up on the wall I went on the neighbours side as the top of the post was about 9 foot in the air. One tap and me and the bar ended up in the neighbours and a section of the wall ended up in my place :rolleyes:

Lucky escape no. 324

Kovu

leg wax wrote: »

just in the door from been up in county leitrim looking at part bulls, jesus lads yea really have perfected the art of growing rushes up there:eek:.

We use it to hide the calves for a few months;)

Our land isn't too bad. Few places here and there, our moors mainly (between the drumlins) that get kinda marshy and hard to navigate for spraying. All the fiends done there last week, bar one ridiculously steep hill that had a quad burn it's breaks through and crash a few years back.

whelan1

went to local pub for tea:D had a few glasses of wine, had put a cow out for calving and was sure she would be calved when we got home...anyways just handled her and the calf was backwards, pulled him out by hand, my 12th friesian bull in a row:cool:

whelan1

leg wax wrote: »

just in the door from been up in county leitrim looking at part bulls, jesus lads yea really have perfected the art of growing rushes up there:eek:.

teagasc advisor was out here last week, was amazed there are no rushes on my farm:D neighbour has a fantastic field of 20 acres of rushes, my dad always says it makes our land look good:D i want to buy that field to finish off a lovely square of land, and also would love to get rid of the rushes:)

blue5000

How much slurry/fertiliser are ppl using on silage ground? I still have 1 field of silage ground to graze.

leg wax

we stoped the car and were looking at a new gate and railings going into the finest field of rushes you ever saw,we could not figure out why,what is he trying to keep in,we were up in carrigallen anyone know it.

Kovu

leg wax wrote: »

we stoped the car and were looking at a new gate and railings going into the finest field of rushes you ever saw,we could not figure out why,what is he trying to keep in,we were up in carrigallen anyone know it.

Possibly do, the homeplace is just 20 mins from Carrigallan. We're more the Longford side.

bob charles

blue5000 wrote: »

How much slurry/fertiliser are ppl using on silage ground? I still have 1 field of silage ground to graze.

3k gls I would be sticking on at least, spin on a little sulphur aswell to get the protein up unless your spreading finishing poo or pig slurry

moy83

Whats finishing poo ?

Kovu

moy83 wrote: »

Whats finishing poo ?

I'l admit, the child in me laughed at poo:o

johnpawl

leg wax wrote: »

yes i did but looking with another man.

Are they the ones on donedeal? Any good?

leg wax

johnpawl wrote: »

Are they the ones on donedeal? Any good?

yes thats them ,they were pushed alot with meal but 3 great bulls on the bunch, a great reflex bull there,but they would not be fit for heifers till the end of the year.

johnpawl

leg wax wrote: »

yes thats them ,they were pushed alot with meal but 3 great bulls on the bunch, a great reflex bull there,but they would not be fit for heifers till the end of the year.

Any purchase made?

simx

anyone at carnaross mart lately? what are 300kg char/lim bullocks making?

Muckit

moy83 wrote: »

Whats finishing poo ?

I think he means slurry from cattle that were being finished and were getting meal. It would be better quality slurry than that from cattle which were only on grass silage all winter.

5live

bbam wrote: »

Indeed.. With work I occasionally head up west Cavan way and can only describe some of the rush farms as grewsome. Take bad land and then neglect it, not a great combination at all.. We're over east Cavan and I thought we had it bad..

I sometimes wonder if there should be legislation against letting land get so bad with rush.. I know their not noxious weeds, but Jesus they don't half take over the place..

Dont worry. Apparently the rush take over of fields will be a huge point in the Dept inspections this year. It could lead to reductions in allowable areas for claiming so better get busy with your cutting and spraying this spring guys and gals

Man of Aran

Sorry to join in lads and excuse my 'ignorance' of status as I have been overseas for a decade or 2.
Is this a result of the "set-aside" or green belt policy that Ireland , UK and USA had for some time. Allowing plots of land to return to nature and get a Gov't subsidy for that?

Does this wet / swampy expansion bring any benefits of flora & fauna, along with the reeds and rushes?
I can think of one fauna ... the spread of liver fluke, from my Ag Science days.

Gramoxone, if still allowed, was one of the best contact weedkillers ever, before RoundUp.
Blast it with that, drain & aerate the soil , plenty of limestone to neutralize the acidity and then regular NPK once it's back on track.
Yellow 'furze'bushs were another sign of poor soil / badly maintained fields but not so much from a drainage aspect.
There was one classic textbook, out of print but if you could get hands on today , called "FREAM's "Elements of Agriculture" still a great aid.

bbam

It's hard to say what caused the changes.
Heavier machinery compacting drainage , increasing rainfall or changes in rainfall patterns. Less intensive farming meant that some land was just neglected.
Gallup is perfectly good at killing rushes, thing is you have to buy and apply it before it does any good!

In our case half the farm was neglected because of off farm jobs etc.
I wil admit it was partially neglect anyway, were working to recover meadow land infested with rush, as a lad I remember cocks of good hay saved on these fields and there was hardly any rush to be seen.
Because we now have more grazing land clear of rush I wan spread less fertiliser so the cost of clearing more than pays or itself. That and I bloody hate them!

JohnBoy

leg wax wrote: »

but they would not be fit for heifers till the end of the year.

know nowt about the practicalities of breeding, why do you say the bulls wouldnt be fit for heifers?

does that imply they'd be fit for cows?


is it just the cows are more relaxed or something?

reilig

5live wrote: »

Dont worry. Apparently the rush take over of fields will be a huge point in the Dept inspections this year. It could lead to reductions in allowable areas for claiming so better get busy with your cutting and spraying this spring guys and gals

This is only part of the story. The whole story is that the Department don't want people claiming area based payments on land which isn't being farmed. They want people to take these pieces of land off the maps being submitted, in the same way as people had to remove land which was covered in scrub from their maps to be submitted a few years ago. There won't be an official dep of ag rush inspector. Instead, satellites will identify fields which appear to be ungrazed and these will be subject to scrutiny. Of course, if a field is covered in strong rushes, it will appear to be ungrazed on satellite. But if it is walked by an inspector, it will be easy to see that the land is in use and this field won't have to be taken out of your maps.

If we look at it from an environmental prospective, Rush laden fields are important habitats for wildlife. Rushes are important breeding grounds for threatened birds such as the corncrake. The EU or irish Government don't really want us to cut and spray important habitats, do they?

Further to that, I know someone who has a large boiler which can take standard small square bales. He cuts, dries and bales about 800 bales of rushes each year and heats his house and small business with it. You can't get a better renewable crop than that. The biggest threat to his crop is dry weather and drought - something we have never had to worry about in Leitrim. He can also feed a flock of organic sheep on his 20 acres!!

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

I know someone who has a large boiler which can take standard small square bales. He cuts, dries and bales about 800 bales of rushes each year and heats his house and small business with it

He could make a killin' on St. Brigid's crosses awell!

JohnBoy

nah, they're too labour intensive, you'd make them in china for half the price

whelan1

had a cow very slow this morning, she calved last friday, gave her a bottle of calcium in crush while waiting on vet and vet gave her 2 more bottles and some phosphorousand some chanatol and pain killers.her temperature was very low.. i gave her another bottle in vein after dinner....went back up half an hour later and she was dead:eek:

Birdnuts

reilig wrote: »

This is only part of the story. The whole story is that the Department don't want people claiming area based payments on land which isn't being farmed. They want people to take these pieces of land off the maps being submitted, in the same way as people had to remove land which was covered in scrub from their maps to be submitted a few years ago. There won't be an official dep of ag rush inspector. Instead, satellites will identify fields which appear to be ungrazed and these will be subject to scrutiny. Of course, if a field is covered in strong rushes, it will appear to be ungrazed on satellite. But if it is walked by an inspector, it will be easy to see that the land is in use and this field won't have to be taken out of your maps.

If we look at it from an environmental prospective, Rush laden fields are important habitats for wildlife. Rushes are important breeding grounds for threatened birds such as the corncrake. The EU or irish Government don't really want us to cut and spray important habitats, do they?

!!

The Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde approach by the Dept to these matters is very frustrating for conservationists, many farmers and those who promote Irish food on the back of our supposed "Green" image. This type of thing has been going on for years and you would think by now that a bit of common sense and joined up thinking would have prevailed among the powers that be. Maybe its too much to expect in this banana republic:rolleyes: