The Grass Measuring Thread

freedominacup

Keepgrowing wrote: »

I'd be more in Freedoms camp on grazing targets with the souls we have. Want first round finished before April 1 and buffer then if necessary rather than bollixing with bales now or for 3 weeks in March while trying to get cows to graze out paddocks. I've no problem going to 60% hi quality bales for a week or 10 days in April

Freedom doesn't have a camp. That was the point of my post. You have to play the game that's in front of you. The guidelines are just that. Last year because of weather we were under pressure to hit 30% because of weather restricting grazing this year we are well ahead of target. In an average year I would probably be panicking by now but urea was out very early and growth has been phenomenal since we started grazing. We'll be buffering hard through Mar. We've got 50% calved now so along with carryovers demand is high. We won't have much more than half cows dm requirements available daily based on 1300kg covers. Along with 6kg of meal we'll still need 4kg of forage dm going in at min. They'll wipe out a buffer that size between 2 and 4 in the afternoon plus a run through the shed after morning milking.

Keepgrowing

visatorro wrote: »

0% grazed. On/off grazing doesn't work when working off farm. No fert out. Anywhere that got slurry out has moved well in last few days. Depending on next weeks weather if il get out or not. Was out last year on 19 Feb so disappointed but work won't allow me come home to bring in cows before a shower!!

Allows you time for Boards I see
Look into a Batt Latch. You can lock out cows and set timer that will open gap and allow to the shed

yewtree

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Allows you time for Boards I see
Look into a Batt Latch. You can lock out cows and set timer that will open gap and allow to the shed

Where did you get that one? Have heard a few lads say they are a good job

Keepgrowing

yewtree wrote: »

Where did you get that one? Have heard a few lads say they are a good job

Stradbally Fsrm Services, Co Laois

http://stradballyfarmservices.com/

simx

Any advice to help lads? Where ya shove up the milk sock, the rubber lad on the top of the coil is getting caught in it when pulling it out its quiet annoying anything to help?

pedigree 6

simx wrote: »

Any advice to help lads? Where ya shove up the milk sock, the rubber lad on the top of the coil is getting caught in it when pulling it out its quiet annoying anything to help?

It shouldn't really get caught when the filter sock is on when you open it to take off the sock. The filter sock should keep the rubber stuck on the coil when pulling out.

Then when washing turn the coil upside down and have the rubber on the bottom.

But if it ever did get stuck, I have a wire handle of a bucket with a crook to pull it down.
But since turning it upside down when washing it's more of a non issue.

whelan2

simx wrote: »

Any advice to help lads? Where ya shove up the milk sock, the rubber lad on the top of the coil is getting caught in it when pulling it out its quiet annoying anything to help?

You can get a replacement rubber bit. We had a length of bull wire with a crook on the end to fish it out

darragh_haven

yewtree wrote: »

Where did you get that one? Have heard a few lads say they are a good job

You can get one that you can text and it'll open the gap. I think its €570- ish

visatorro

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Allows you time for Boards I see
Look into a Batt Latch. You can lock out cows and set timer that will open gap and allow to the shed

Work hours vary. If ground is dry I can give them abit and it doesn't matter what time they come back in. It doesn't work like that if it's wet. If I damage paddocks cows will be inside on hay for the year!!
No boards at work it's only when herself is giving out to me I might glance through!!

GrasstoMilk

Grass growth wicked high here.

33% grazed to day
Should be 38% come the 1st

Farm cover 1280
70% calved
Opening cover was 1240

ted_182

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Grass growth wicked high here.

33% grazed to day
Should be 38% come the 1st

Farm cover 1280
70% calved
Opening cover was 1240

Long may it last for ye you should hit 16ton grown handy enough if spring growth continues like that

GrasstoMilk

ted_182 wrote: »

Long may it last for ye you should hit 16ton grown handy enough if spring growth continues like that

Getting it allgrazed for April 5thmight be a challenge

Signpost

In the last 24 hours alone I've grown 16mm of rain and now covering of snow blanketing out any green on the grounds. All in all I'm on target for 0% grazed by March 17th, can't beat farming in wet land.

charolais0153

Cleanout is good. Growth is good . life's good

freedominacup

I had to go to a funeral in Dublin today. I had a friend of mine in the car with me. He works in agribusiness but not in an area where he would have any awareness of the greenfields farm. The cows were in a paddock close to the motorway. His only comment was that "the animal welfare crowd wouldn't want to see that". To be fair it probably wasn't as bad as it looked to the lay man but not a great advertisement for Irish dairying either.

Keepgrowing

freedominacup wrote: »

I had to go to a funeral in Dublin today. I had a friend of mine in the car with me. He works in agribusiness but not in an area where he would have any awareness of the greenfields farm. The cows were in a paddock close to the motorway. His only comment was that "the animal welfare crowd wouldn't want to see that". To be fair it probably wasn't as bad as it looked to the lay man but not a great advertisement for Irish dairying either.

Had you been on another motorway today you'd have seen ours and again tonight, not a bother on them. It could be the last night for a few by the forecast

CloughCasey1

charolais0153 wrote: »

Cleanout is good. Growth is good . life's good

Let out a few of those tonne weight cows ye have and we'll see will it be as tasty looking.☺

degetme

Lads I've a few cow's pucking and rooting up patches in paddocks. Never like this before. Only 3hr grazings at the moment or else there housed. Any way of stopping this? Will they stop when ground hardens up when out fulltime?

Mooooo

degetme wrote: »

Lads I've a few cow's pucking and rooting up patches in paddocks. Never like this before. Only 3hr grazings at the moment or else there housed. Any way of stopping this? Will they stop when ground hardens up when out fulltime?

Are they licking the ground as well? Could include a bit of phosphorus in the meal?

degetme

No licking. Just acting the bollix

ellewood

freedominacup wrote: »

I had to go to a funeral in Dublin today. I had a friend of mine in the car with me. He works in agribusiness but not in an area where he would have any awareness of the greenfields farm. The cows were in a paddock close to the motorway. His only comment was that "the animal welfare crowd wouldn't want to see that". To be fair it probably wasn't as bad as it looked to the lay man but not a great advertisement for Irish dairying either.

You should have seen it this morning 😆 - to be fair it probably looked worse than it is
They have them further in from the motorway this evening so maybe more were saying it to them 😉

Timmaay

Like much of the country I've wayyy too much grass here, most years I try to graze everything once before closing up for silage, but that's going to be a real struggle this year. I've 14 acres that was grazed out in dec by heifers, it has a nice cover of about 900 on it now. Should I bite the bullet and close that up for silage ground now?

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

Like much of the country I've wayyy too much grass here, most years I try to graze everything once before closing up for silage, but that's going to be a real struggle this year. I've 14 acres that was grazed out in dec by heifers, it has a nice cover of about 900 on it now. Should I bite the bullet and close that up for silage ground now?

If there is no dead material do, just make sure and cut it the first week of may or before to get the most quality out of it and have aftergrass back for breeding

Timmaay

Mooooo wrote: »

If there is no dead material do, just make sure and cut it the first week of may or before to get the most quality out of it and have aftergrass back for breeding

Actually more importantly, Wtf do I do about 20 acres or so of this, heavy dead butt on the grass. On ground that I've just after rented, must be an afc of 1800 on the whole lot of it, and wasn't grazed since early last autumn. I can walk milkers across to it for the next few weeks, but I'm obviously not expecting them to eat that down. Also what will it do for my solids/yeilds?

Keepgrowing

Timmaay wrote: »

Actually more importantly, Wtf do I do about 20 acres or so of this, heavy dead butt on the grass. On ground that I've just after rented, must be an afc of 1800 on the whole lot of it, and wasn't grazed since early last autumn. I can walk milkers across to it for the next few weeks, but I'm obviously not expecting them to eat that down. Also what will it do for my solids/yeilds?

Dry cows?

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

Actually more importantly, Wtf do I do about 20 acres or so of this, heavy dead butt on the grass. On ground that I've just after rented, must be an afc of 1800 on the whole lot of it, and wasn't grazed since early last autumn. I can walk milkers across to it for the next few weeks, but I'm obviously not expecting them to eat that down. Also what will it do for my solids/yeilds?

Have you all other stock out? Could put other stock on it to clean it down. Or do the best you can with cows and then use the devils tool, I mean topper, to clean it off and set it for the rest of the year. Pic doesn't look very bad tho, if twas a mat horizontal on the ground it would be tougher

White Clover

Timmaay wrote: »

Actually more importantly, Wtf do I do about 20 acres or so of this, heavy dead butt on the grass. On ground that I've just after rented, must be an afc of 1800 on the whole lot of it, and wasn't grazed since early last autumn. I can walk milkers across to it for the next few weeks, but I'm obviously not expecting them to eat that down. Also what will it do for my solids/yeilds?

You could buy 100 ewes and lamb them, let em graze away ahead of the cows for the year, you'd have great lambs in August to sell!!

charolais0153

White Clover wrote: »

You could buy 100 ewes and lamb them, let em graze away ahead of the cows for the year, you'd have great lambs in August to sell!!

Additional cost of fencing and timmays lack of facilities for sheep would be a major stumbling block

White Clover

charolais0153 wrote: »

Additional cost of fencing and timmays lack of facilities for sheep would be a major stumbling block

He should prioritize these jobs, put them top of the list for Monday and get them doneðŸ˜

whelan2

White Clover wrote: »

He should prioritize these jobs, put them top of the list for Monday and get them doneðŸ˜

Why wait until Monday?

White Clover

whelan2 wrote: »

Why wait until Monday?

He will need to get a consultant or two in to ensure that the farm is laid out properly for the sheep. I presume they don't work weekends? Unless of course, he informs them of the urgency of this workðŸ˜

GrasstoMilk

AFC 900
67% grazed
Growth 24

A bit behind on area grazed but cows really mowing grass now- grazed 20% of farm area in the last 9 days

First paddock grazed is at 1000
70 units of urea out on every acre
Farm just hit 1t grown to date- target is 1400 kgs grown /ha by start of second round

charolais0153

AFC 450
78% grazed
Demand 25
Growth 27
Around 850kgs grown to date.
23 units of urea on whole farm .
Ground is really firm and spread a lot of manure the last few days.
According to mt cranium, there'll only be showers this week and it'll be warm again into April.
A lot of growth to come I'd say.

GrasstoMilk

charolais0153 wrote: »

AFC 450
78% grazed
Demand 25
Growth 27
Around 850kgs grown to date.
23 units of urea on whole farm .
Ground is really firm and spread a lot of manure the last few days.
According to mt cranium, there'll only be showers this week and it'll be warm again into April.
A lot of growth to come I'd say.

I'd get some more N out. Your AFC is quite light

83% grazed
Gr 27
A week left in first round

1150 on first 2 paddocks. One was first grazed and other only grazed 40 days ago

Buford T. Justice XIX

I'm including a link below discussing meal requirements and the ability of good grass to reduce the levels fed.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1392449400806408&id=1161444260573591

yewtree

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I'm including a link below discussing meal requirements and the ability of good grass to reduce the levels fed.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1392449400806408&id=1161444260573591

I think that article started a bit of a row on twitter today.
Nothing like a feeding input debate to start a good row!

mahoney_j

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I'm including a link below discussing meal requirements and the ability of good grass to reduce the levels fed.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1392449400806408&id=1161444260573591

Thought provoking alright but in the extreme ,author of that post let himself down badly earlier today on twitter tho

jaymla627

yewtree wrote: »

I think that article started a bit of a row on twitter today.
Nothing like a feeding input debate to start a good row!

Wasn't so much a row but refusing to answer what the max litres grass will support was head scratching, the generally accepted figure is in our around 25-27 litres in ideal conditions with top quality grass going in this gets drilled back down to nearer 20 when grass/weather don't play ball.....
I totally accept the merits of his message for herds that are in our around 5000 litres and have a robust cow type simply wouldn't work with us where I have heifers doing 30 plus litres and cows 40 plus they need 6 plus kilos of feed going in our they simply melt away no matter how good the grass going into them is

Buford T. Justice XIX

mahoney_j wrote: »

Thought provoking alright but in the extreme ,author of that post let himself down badly earlier today on twitter tho

Yeah, I'd agree but the message of improving quality and quantity of grass applies to all so I thought I'd fire it up.

I wouldn't agree 100% with him but he does make me stop and think a bit which is no bad thing imo.

yewtree

jaymla627 wrote: »

Wasn't so much a row but refusing to answer what the max litres grass will support was head scratching, the generally accepted figure is in our around 25-27 litres in ideal conditions with top quality grass going in this gets drilled back down to nearer 20 when grass/weather don't play ball.....
I totally accept the merits of his message for herds that are in our around 5000 litres and have a robust cow type simply wouldn't work with us where I have heifers doing 30 plus litres and cows 40 plus they need 6 plus kilos of feed going in our they simply melt away no matter how good the grass going into them is

Id agreed with that, the cows should suit your system. No point trying to run low input system with high yielding cows.
I heard Joe patton talking last year and 26 litres was what well managed grass can support,( lower in autumn ).
I thought the orginal article was very interesting, it was a bit of a shame it got a personal on twitter today.

mahoney_j

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Yeah, I'd agree but the message of improving quality and quantity of grass applies to all so I thought I'd fire it up.

I wouldn't agree 100% with him but he does make me stop and think a bit which is no bad thing imo.

I find his articles interesting ,wouldn't agree with everything he preaches tho ,def worth reposting here tho as no matter what system any of us run high quality grass needs to be the starting point

Injuryprone

So, in perfect conditions with the very best of grass management, it's possible for a cow to eat enough grass to support 29l.

The point i think he's missing is that half the cows in the country are producing more than 29l atm, and some are producing a lot more.

If I'm reading it correctly, then he's saying that if your herd avg is 29 or less then you don't need to feed much concentrate if your grass is right. But if you feed your herd based on your average cow's yield, then you're going to end up with a herd of average cows.

I know in my own herd, it's the top 20% of cows that are 40s that are the cows that i want to have still around in 5 years time and even if it means overfeeding the lower yielders a bit, I'm going to make sure the higher yielders are fed properly (at least until they're back in calf anyway)

Wildsurfer

Injuryprone wrote: »

So, in perfect conditions with the very best of grass management, it's possible for a cow to eat enough grass to support 29l.

The point i think he's missing is that half the cows in the country are producing more than 29l atm, and some are producing a lot more.

If I'm reading it correctly, then he's saying that if your herd avg is 29 or less then you don't need to feed much concentrate if your grass is right. But if you feed your herd based on your average cow's yield, then you're going to end up with a herd of average cows.

I know in my own herd, it's the top 20% of cows that are 40s that are the cows that i want to have still around in 5 years time and even if it means overfeeding the lower yielders a bit, I'm going to make sure the higher yielders are fed properly (at least until they're back in calf anyway)

Do you really believe half the country's herds are yielding more than 29 L at the moment, I'd say you'd get some shock if you saw the actual figures countrywide. Look I don't agree fully either with what he is saying but there is a lot of lads out there firing meal into cows when they should be putting more work into their grassland management. I was listening to Joe Patton speak about their work at oak park on the winter milk herd last year and when they pumped meal into the high yielders she pumped out more milk alright but at the expense of conception rate. They hadn't an option to carryover cows as Autumn calving only, so the cow was gone from herd. They therefore stopped using fty and are happy to have an 'average' cow going back in calf with a 365 day interval and delivering over a long lactation.

yewtree

Joe patton is an interesting guy to listen to, at the talk I was at last year, their figures shown for a herd averaging 30 litres less than 5% of the herd was doing 40+ litres so if you fed the herd to the requirements of the top cows you were over feeding 90% of the herd.
Those figures were from commercial herds. It's not a knock on higher yielding systems just shows how efficient you need to be with feed inputs on these systems.

Timmaay

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Do you really believe half the country's herds are yielding more than 29 L at the moment, I'd say you'd get some shock if you saw the actual figures countrywide. Look I don't agree fully either with what he is saying but there is a lot of lads out there firing meal into cows when they should be putting more work into their grassland management. I was listening to Joe Patton speak about their work at oak park on the winter milk herd last year and when they pumped meal into the high yielders she pumped out more milk alright but at the expense of conception rate. They hadn't an option to carryover cows as Autumn calving only, so the cow was gone from herd. They therefore stopped using fty and are happy to have an 'average' cow going back in calf with a 365 day interval and delivering over a long lactation.

On the button here, the cows doing 40l here are the ones that I am letting sink or swim, I'm much more interested in having a heard of cows who max out about 33l, go back incalf without trouble, and don't need a huge amount of tlc the following winter or calving season. Meal is only used to fill the hole in grass wedges and provide Cal mag and minerals.

I've been too long on the wrong side, with too milky a cow who pumps out 40l+ while getting up to 8kg fty, melts and ends up being pushing around to the following autumn, you end up stupid oversuppling your winter contracts, and double the work in terms of two breeding seasons, 4 sets of heifers etc etc.

alps

It is the great debate, but graise is hitting on the most important message, and we need to read that message and not ignore it for reasons of facilitating excuses of what we do ourselves.His point seems simple, in that, grass can be your highest energy input per kg DM that your cows consume, as long as you present it and graze it in the correct condition. Do that first and you can feed all you want after that, but if you cause a substitution effect, you will reduce your capacity to continue to provide this top class energy product.

Lyons Research Farm has 24 litres being the output achievable from 0 compound , and just 2 kg required to fully feed the cow doing 25 to 30l...but I am amazed at how high you need to go after that to keep feeding to yield. I will post their slide in another post.

However graise point is that loso of farm performance comes from presenting the cow with grass of lower potential than what it could have been....

alps

Feed requirements

jaymla627

alps wrote: »

Feed requirements

Pretty open ended slide that's just cherry picking the peak grass months when grass might supply them yields, I really wouldn't be taking lyons research as gospel their still very green their by the looks of it around what grass is actually capable off, to sustain a good high peak and steady lactation curve your not going to achieve it by reckoning 2-4kgs plus grass will sustain 30-33 litres for anymore then a couple of weeks before cows start to drop of like a cliff below the 30 litre mark....

charolais0153

Done the cut and weight system here today fir a first time...I was overestimating the first paddock by 60kg/DM/ha so wasn't too bad but the second was a resseded paddock and wasn't as thick and was about 250kgs out...

ozil10

Have first field grazed on second rotation
what are people spreading now
went with bag/acre of CAN in Jan
2 bags/acre of 18-6-12 on March 8th