how ye for grass?

case 956

walked the farm yesterday and practically nothing grew the last week, introduced baled silage to cows last night, hopefuuly dis "Indian Summer" were expecting will bounce growth rates back up.

linebacker52

We are ok at the moment growth was ok last week not had much rain down here hoping to stay out till 1 dec will start feeding bales in the next forthnigh or so to stretch it out.

johngalway

Pretty good here, lambs have six days left where they are, then up again to the next spot for a fortnight, grass is coming along nicely there. Land is fierce soggy though.

bob charles

Finally the grass has really started to grow, just goes to show the differences of growth rates on our tiny island. probably got the best growth so far this year during the last week. There was a major shortage of moisture up to now coupled with cold winds. Stupid Nitrates directives means I cant go with more N as winter forage is desperate low and could do with driving on grass to try and keep animals outside. Any of the farm that got N on the 1st of Sept could really do with more.

awaywithyou

short of winter forage........?

how in the name of god in this year of all years are ya short of winter forage......?

jeff greene

By all accounts lots of forage here in Kerry Bob. Given the horrible weather we might need it all though. I laugh when I read about advances in 'grazing technology' (what technology, its not an iPad:pac:), not much you can do when all this rain. I'm keeping the cows in tonight. I, like them was like a drowned rat this morning, poaching and wasting grass isn't worth it. Hopefully things will improve as predicted and can be grazed then. Have lots of grass though

awaywithyou

what part of kerry you in jeff...?

jeff greene

awaywithyou wrote: »

what part of kerry you in jeff...?

Thats classified information:pac:

Near Killarney

awaywithyou

your not a north kerry man anyway.... we've good dry land here in north kerry..... cows will be out day and night for another month at least.....

you must be down south around cahersiveen..........

whelan1

loads of grass here, cows getting at least 2 grazings off each paddock and milk is holding up well . Going to do a 3rd cut during this warm spell- well 10 acres of bales have reseeded 10 acres aswell.... have the triticale and lupins in... what are the maize crops like now?

pat73

Just wondering would farmers who spread bag fertilizer up to the middle of this month get a good return on money spent compared to the grass that would grow.I know weather is the boss but with the price of fertilizer and baled silage priced at twenty euro which would be better value.I last spread my self at the end of Aug and was in two minds to spread up to the closing date but i thought i wouldnt get the return on money spent.

jeff greene

awaywithyou wrote: »

your not a north kerry man anyway.... we've good dry land here in north kerry..... cows will be out day and night for another month at least.....

you must be down south around cahersiveen..........

Reported :mad: I'm deeply offended :pac:

I bet ye do, I always knew ye to be modest. Loads of dry land here too, my place is dry, only so much it can take , you mustn't have got the rain we did

John_F

whelan1 wrote: »

loads of grass here, cows getting at least 2 grazings off each paddock and milk is holding up well . Going to do a 3rd cut during this warm spell- well 10 acres of bales have reseeded 10 acres aswell.... have the triticale and lupins in... what are the maize crops like now?

walked a few fields of maize this week and reckon a few lads down south will be cutting this week, real good cobs for the year we had imo (sown with plastic). some dirty crops and hate seeing this into the pit, some were dirty but got more spray and this didn't seem to knock it back that much, late sown crops arent doing great though and havent walked any crops not under plastic.

stanflt

cows in covers of 1600 and have loads of grass- still feeding about 9kg/dm in tmr and 2.5kg in parlour. stretching grass out hope to keep them out as long as possible(end nov) weather permitting. keeping an eye on feed budget not to build up to much covers or run out.
7 cows calved and herd doing 23.5lt/day @4.13fat 3.68prot on the bulk tank. milk should increase with 20ready to dry off after next recording

John_F

stanflt wrote: »

cows in covers of 1600 and have loads of grass- still feeding about 9kg/dm in tmr and 2.5kg in parlour. stretching grass out hope to keep them out as long as possible(end nov) weather permitting. keeping an eye on feed budget not to build up to much covers or run out.
7 cows calved and herd doing 23.5lt/day @4.13fat 3.68prot on the bulk tank. milk should increase with 20ready to dry off after next recording

do your freesh calvers go out to grass same as rest of the herd or are they offered more of the tmr?

stanflt

John_F wrote: »

do your freesh calvers go out to grass same as rest of the herd or are they offered more of the tmr?

run with rest of herd- try to keep their crude protein level to 15% for first month after calving. after that they will be offered feed to yield in parlour which will bump this up to 18%cp

djmc

Its being raining here almost every day for a month and Im not in south kerry
but land around causway ballyheige listowel is like a different county they can even grow tillage and spuds there ffs
My cows are sinking up to their udders:eek:
feeding bales with a week now

dar31

going into covers of 1400 - 1600 as well, walked the farm during the week, and ave farm cover of 300kg/cow, 800kg/ha, growth of 52kg for last fortnight.
ground only starting to come through after dry conditions, some banks in fields still burnt and along by hedges only starting to green.
getting bales for the last 10 days, and all autumn calvers dried off and confined in field on rough baled silage, to reduce demand.

will probably start up the feeder in a fortnight with some mz, and meal in parlor for fresh calvers and low bcs cows.
first of the autumn calvers due in 10 days or so
spring calvers will get a months extra holidays this year

awaywithyou

stanflt wrote: »

cows in covers of 1600 and have loads of grass- still feeding about 9kg/dm in tmr and 2.5kg in parlour. stretching grass out hope to keep them out as long as possible(end nov) weather permitting. keeping an eye on feed budget not to build up to much covers or run out.
7 cows calved and herd doing 23.5lt/day @4.13fat 3.68prot on the bulk tank. milk should increase with 20ready to dry off after next recording

stanfit, would you mind giving me the breakdown of your TMR feed.......?

stanflt

awaywithyou wrote: »

stanfit, would you mind giving me the breakdown of your TMR feed.......?

1.5kg/dm of brewers/citrus mix ratio 6;1
2.6kg/dm silage 80%dmd
4.5kg/dm maize
0.7kg/dm barley straw

its rocket fuel:)

keep going

going into a couple of 1800 to 2000 this week so hoping weather drys up as got great feed out of a big cover this week on the dry days-been steering clear of them but have to go there now.

bob charles

this is the first week of "real growth" in these parts this year. just goes to show the variation throughout our small island. We were having major moisture issues, with very cold winds and little or no sunshine. I am riffling though our first pit off wholecrop and pitted another 20ac last week just to keep us going until a crap maize crop is cut. even my stuff under plastic planted mid April is crap, the stuff in the open isnt much worse, just no sunlight, Sugar beet dont look too bad, but that has plenty of growing to do yet. Buffer feeding didnt stop this summer and a good few cattle didnt manage to make it outdoors due to no grass. Even Italian and the hybrid grass swards production this year were piss poor. Ah sure maybe next year will be our turn for growing all this fantastic supposed cheap grass that I keep hearing about

jeff greene

bob charles wrote: »

this is the first week of "real growth" in these parts this year. just goes to show the variation throughout our small island. We were having major moisture issues, with very cold winds and little or no sunshine. I am riffling though our first pit off wholecrop and pitted another 20ac last week just to keep us going until a crap maize crop is cut. even my stuff under plastic planted mid April is crap, the stuff in the open isnt much worse, just no sunlight, Sugar beet dont look too bad, but that has plenty of growing to do yet. Buffer feeding didnt stop this summer and a good few cattle didnt manage to make it outdoors due to no grass. Even Italian and the hybrid grass swards production this year were piss poor. Ah sure maybe next year will be our turn for growing all this fantastic supposed cheap grass that I keep hearing about

You know what, I believe you, if there is one thing I learned from here is the huge range of weather we get on this small island. Maize here is good, cobs are a bit smaller and still immature but considering the plastic was blown off most of mine in May and the lack of sun, its ok. A good year for grass here, never short and always got a few days to cut in good conditions.

whelan1

have to agree, but as said before there is a huge variation in weather here ,also different types of land benefit in different years, we have fed no silage since april and dont intend to feed any til november , if i can get away with it. Going in to some covers of 1800 and there is great growing going on , so if the man above gives us good weather we should be fine

irishh_bob

whelan1 wrote: »

have to agree, but as said before there is a huge variation in weather here ,also different types of land benefit in different years, we have fed no silage since april and dont intend to feed any til november , if i can get away with it. Going in to some covers of 1800 and there is great growing going on , so if the man above gives us good weather we should be fine

most of county louth is bone dry

whelan1

irishh_bob wrote: »

most of county louth is bone dry

you have to emphasise the word most. Our farm is very heavy land and it did really well this year, neighbours had drought conditions but we where fine, he had his cows out at end of january we didnt

Juniorhurler

Down here in wexford grass is growing well but I, getting short due to re-seeding 20 acres on 3rd September and put two fields of grass (19ac) under winter oil seed rape. If the good weather arrives this week I'll be grand, if not I'll be feeding bales outside in a fortnight. This would be a disaster for me as I generally leave cows out til the end of November most often they don't get bales outside either.

bob charles

seen two spreaders on tractors today:rolleyes:

whelan1

they where probably just putting them in storage for the winter:)

Muckit

Juniorhurler wrote: »

Down here in wexford grass is growing well but I, getting short due to re-seeding 20 acres on 3rd September and put two fields of grass (19ac) under winter oil seed rape. If the good weather arrives this week I'll be grand, if not I'll be feeding bales outside in a fortnight. This would be a disaster for me as I generally leave cows out til the end of November most often they don't get bales outside either.

Ye are in a different world altogether down there! was down there around Johnstown castle last spring and couldn't get over the grass covers when grass non exsistent here in the Weeessssssst

Bactidiaryl

could spread in the pissing rain two weeks ago and cant now when conditions are ideal. it recks my head.