Dairy Chitchat 3

Timmaay

Anyone here use 6mm stokbord for ring feeders, how has it faired out?

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

I gave up on bothering to parlour train heifers here, instead I have them mixed in with some dry cows now, I find that helps hugely when they come into the milking herd then. I also always have help for one milking a day during most of Feb and March. Had very few problems last yr, use to be hell on myown before ha.

First time doing it. Heifers used to be split between aut and spring and always had a good share of cows milking so didn't really need to but a good few calving in Feb now so will hopefully make things easier. 2 hours for 42 of em. And the friendly feckers are the worst no moving em

alps

Mooooo wrote: »

Turning heifers into parlour here for a bit of training and tail clipping. Pray for me

Ours are flying in...all in properly on second day and running in on the third.

What we do is on the first day we run them the reverse way through the parlour..that way they are going forward single file back through the exit race through the front gates of the parlour and the while thing only stops when they reach the back gate...then hit the feeder..

On the second day, now they know the ration is in those feeders, given a little quiet time from the collecting yard they make their own way in, and we feed individually as each arrives at their spot.

Flying in by third day, and we let them recycle around and in again for another little bit...that way when the exit gate is opened, they rush off to get around rather than trying to coax them to leave...

Mortelaro

alps wrote: »

Ours are flying in...all in properly on second day and running in on the third.

What we do is on the first day we run them the reverse way through the parlour..that way they are going forward single file back through the exit race through the front gates of the parlour and the while thing only stops when they reach the back gate...then hit the feeder..

On the second day, now they know the ration is in those feeders, given a little quiet time from the collecting yard they make their own way in, and we feed individually as each arrives at their spot.

Flying in by third day, and we let them recycle around and in again for another little bit...that way when the exit gate is opened, they rush off to get around rather than trying to coax them to leave...

Now that sounds like another brilliant idea,that we'll try here
Normally we let them run with the cows for a while and most of them eventually come in,especially when they've discovered the nuts

K.G.

alps wrote: »

Ours are flying in...all in properly on second day and running in on the third.

What we do is on the first day we run them the reverse way through the parlour..that way they are going forward single file back through the exit race through the front gates of the parlour and the while thing only stops when they reach the back gate...then hit the feeder..

On the second day, now they know the ration is in those feeders, given a little quiet time from the collecting yard they make their own way in, and we feed individually as each arrives at their spot.

Flying in by third day, and we let them recycle around and in again for another little bit...that way when the exit gate is opened, they rush off to get around rather than trying to coax them to leave...

similar here.first let them wander the collecting yard for an hour.then pull ration and let them in as they please but dont let feeders fill to avoid noise.next day pull ration after a couple minutes.next day pull straight away.next day let feeders fill to get them used to that noise.a couple of days later switch on machine and then later radio.the big advantage is when they calve they fly in early in the row-nothing worse than having heifers at the back of a row

straight

I just applied to join my local teagasc dairy grass group. Is it worth the hassle? I'll give it a go for a while anyway. Alot of silage bales on the move around the place.

yosemitesam1

https://twitter.com/fleroy1974/status/1069692741678972928?s=19


Interesting thread on twitter there

jaymla627

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/fleroy1974/status/1069692741678972928?s=19


Interesting thread on twitter there

Who knew the Saudi crown prince was a vegan haha, wouldn’t be the poster boy the vegan world needs given his gra for wholesale state sponsered murders of anyone that displeases him, their is a massive margin to be made on vegan food from the processors side so obviously they will push whatever agenda lines their pockets most but the facts they present re water use and saving the planet going vegan over meat/dairy are made up fanatical bulls**t

Say my name

jaymla627 wrote: »

Who knew the Saudi crown prince was a vegan haha, wouldn’t be the poster boy the vegan world needs given his gra for wholesale state sponsered murders of anyone that displeases him, their is a massive margin to be made on vegan food from the processors side so obviously they will push whatever agenda lines their pockets most but the facts they present re water use and saving the planet going vegan over meat/dairy are made up fanatical bulls**t

Vegans are just loopy.

Pure and simple....and should never be let into positions of power.

Sinead O Connor and Hitler.
Famous Vegans and for loopiness.

Say my name

straight wrote: »

I just applied to join my local teagasc dairy grass group. Is it worth the hassle? I'll give it a go for a while anyway. Alot of silage bales on the move around the place.

It is but you have to be prepared to host a walk too.
(Just have to practice that myself sometime :pac: )

It's of benefit really to just give you a benchmark against the rest of the group.

jaymla627

Say my name wrote: »

Vegans are just loopy.

Pure and simple....and should never be let into positions of power.

Sinead O Connor and Hitler.
Famous Vegans and for loopiness.

Bill gates is the most intresting, has invested huge money in vegan food companies and had a huge amount of shares in Monsanto before it merged with Bayer, a company that now basically has a monopoly on thy plant based food market, if you follow the money it’s not hard to see what the end game is for these billionaire vegan crusaders

Say my name

jaymla627 wrote: »

Bill gates is the most intresting, has invested huge money in vegan food companies and had a huge amount of shares in Monsanto before it merged with Bayer, a company that now basically has a monopoly on thy plant based food market, if you follow the money it’s not hard to see what the end game is for these billionaire vegan crusaders

I don't think he is vegan. He doesn't have that vegan/cocaine user look about him.

He's invested in vegan companies alright but I'd say it's mostly on their global quest to end world hunger.
Maybe I'm too naive.

kevthegaff

In general tech lads/lasses are more that way, Interesting he's put big investment into toilets and waste technology

Timmaay

Mortelaro wrote: »

I'm not grazing out my entire farm,I'd say there's about 50 acres in the available MP closed since November and staying closed
Always hedge a bit
Anything grazed now is for slurry
But to answer your question ,we used get in sheep over the winter for 30 or 40 years to bare up paddocks and never had a grass shortage in spring ,just thicker lovely grass
All the cows are doing now this week is the exact same job while ground conditions are good,plus making cheap milk to boot,what's not to like?

OK I'll take back mostly what I said there ha, milkers out by night here now also, and silage totally out of the diet, just maize and parlour nuts. Nicely helps my problem of having half a pit of silage buried behind the maize ha.

Mortelaro

Timmaay wrote: »

OK I'll take back mostly what I said there ha, milkers out by night here now also, and silage totally out of the diet, just maize and parlour nuts. Nicely helps my problem of having half a pit of silage buried behind the maize ha.

Brilliant, it's unreal conditions at the moment, I'm expecting to get another week to 10 days out day and night
We are feeding grass silage for about 2 hours before milking
Opened the main pit yesterday, had been feeding the October silage up until then,it turned out good stuff,MS's are decently high on it

Waffletraktor

kevthegaff wrote: »

In general tech lads/lasses are more that way, Interesting he's put big investment into toilets and waste technology

Our man's money is in the improving the success of food storage/distribution game to cut down spoil in sub continent and SE Asia.

GrasstoMilk

What percent hydrated lime are ppl finding is best for cubicles?
Local place has white rhino, mastercal 10% and agrical 50%.
Which is the best out of them?

Mooooo

Use the 10% here, mastercal as well, easy to spread. White rhino is harsh on cow's and dusty to spread. Asked about higher percentage stuff but they didn't have it locally so stuck with the 10%. Will be trimming tails this week when dosing as well helps keeps them much cleaner. Used to wait till calving and trim when fit for tank but should be ok that way with tape and paint. Used cepravin on all cows bar a number calving mid Feb which were too close for cepravin withdrawal so used cephagaurd on them. May be no harm to have a few with short withdrawal mid season take the pressure of in parlour anyway

mahoney_j

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

What percent hydrated lime are ppl finding is best for cubicles?
Local place has white rhino, mastercal 10% and agrical 50%.
Which is the best out of them?

Using 30% hydrated blend from Mcgrath quarries ,cubicles and cows way drier

GrasstoMilk

Mooooo wrote: »

Use the 10% here, mastercal as well, easy to spread. White rhino is harsh on cow's and dusty to spread. Asked about higher percentage stuff but they didn't have it locally so stuck with the 10%. Will be trimming tails this week when dosing as well helps keeps them much cleaner. Used to wait till calving and trim when fit for tank but should be ok that way with tape and paint. Used cepravin on all cows bar a number calving mid Feb which were too close for cepravin withdrawal so used cephagaurd on them. May be no harm to have a few with short withdrawal mid season take the pressure of in parlour anyway

Bought mastercal 160€ a tonne.
All orbenin here. 46 day withdrawal.
Trimmed and dosed all ours last week. IBR tomorrow.

whelan2

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Bought mastercal 160€ a tonne.
All orbenin here. 46 day withdrawal.
Trimmed and dosed all ours last week. IBR tomorrow.

Are yours all dry or are you still milking?

Keepgrowing

Using sawdust in morning and dusting with Agrical in afternoon

freedominacup

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Using sawdust in morning and dusting with Agrical in afternoon

Doing the two together here in the morning. Lime gives a bit of a bind to the shavings.

We did a renovation job on the main building here this year. Like a new building. Probably cost €400 per space incl new scraper system and an increase in storage capacity of 50%. Extended some beds by 200mm and removed a dividing wall between two beds facing each other. Replaced 60% of the cubicles with Condons space sharers. Huge reduction in the amount of bedding being used with a similar reduction in labour. Cleaner and more comfortable cows. Had to wait until we could put the funds together but really should have done it sooner. First year in a while that we're not panicking about the opening of spreading season.

Increase of almost 50% in feeding area also. Slatted new storage and have a 22ft×75ft yard with feeding barrier and trough. The old rule of thumb used to be 1ft of feeding rail per 2ft of cubicle space, starting to think it should be closer to 2:3.

Panch18

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Using sawdust in morning and dusting with Agrical in afternoon

Any problems with the sawdust in the slurry after??

Timmaay

freedominacup wrote: »

Doing the two together here in the morning. Lime gives a bit of a bind to the shavings.

We did a renovation job on the main building here this year. Like a new building. Probably cost €400 per space incl new scraper system and an increase in storage capacity of 50%. Extended some beds by 200mm and removed a dividing wall between two beds facing each other. Replaced 60% of the cubicles with Condons space sharers. Huge reduction in the amount of bedding being used with a similar reduction in labour. Cleaner and more comfortable cows. Had to wait until we could put the funds together but really should have done it sooner. First year in a while that we're not panicking about the opening of spreading season.

Increase of almost 50% in feeding area also. Slatted new storage and have a 22ft×75ft yard with feeding barrier and trough. The old rule of thumb used to be 1ft of feeding rail per 2ft of cubicle space, starting to think it should be closer to 2:3.

I'm not gonna lie I feel like abit of an idiot for spending 40k on the 2nd yard and now I have the cows happy outside eating outa ring feeders haha.

Mortelaro

Just thought I'd give ye a quick update on the possible cold weather towards the end of the month,it now looks like the stratospheric warming is downwelling into the troposphere where our weather is made,it's effect on weakening the jet stream according to a UK met office expert could last into April,not cold all the time but growth will go out the window and some very cold spells are possible during this period if you understand?

My advice would be to prepare better if you are able and chaos theory being weather theory hope we escape,it is however still a real risk,specifics are not possible at this stage as computer models this far out can only point at trends
To put this in context,it's as strong an anomaly as effected our weather last February into march but is starting earlier and lasting longer which increases the window of opportunity for example for extreme cold outbreaks and from a farming perspective potentially the worst of all worlds because there's a risk that ground temps may stay too low for growth too often at a time when people are already tightly budgeting on fodder,so maybe not a bad idea to be sourcing whatever local merchants have available within your budget if needed?

whelan2

Very tempted to let the milkers back out. Lovely day here today

straight

Grand stretch there

Nalz

Say my name wrote: »

He doesn't have that vegan/cocaine user look about him.

Wtf

RedPeppers

whelan2 wrote: »

Very tempted to let the milkers back out. Lovely day here today

Herd of cows out round here today, never seen the likes of it. At the rate grass is growing will be hard to find place for slurry.

Timmaay

whelan2 wrote: »

Very tempted to let the milkers back out. Lovely day here today

Ah now hurry up, your a week later than the rest of us . The last 30 cow's milking here are going OAD from tomorrow and I'm tempted to leave them out far side of the farm considering I'll only be walking them in once a day.

jaymla627

Mortelaro wrote: »

Just thought I'd give ye a quick update on the possible cold weather towards the end of the month,it now looks like the stratospheric warming is downwelling into the troposphere where our weather is made,it's effect on weakening the jet stream according to a UK met office expert could last into April,not cold all the time but growth will go out the window and some very cold spells are possible during this period if you understand?

My advice would be to prepare better if you are able and chaos theory being weather theory hope we escape,it is however still a real risk,specifics are not possible at this stage as computer models this far out can only point at trends
To put this in context,it's as strong an anomaly as effected our weather last February into march but is starting earlier and lasting longer which increases the window of opportunity for example for extreme cold outbreaks and from a farming perspective potentially the worst of all worlds because there's a risk that ground temps may stay too low for growth too often at a time when people are already tightly budgeting on fodder,so maybe not a bad idea to be sourcing whatever local merchants have available within your budget if needed?

All cows are going out here tomorw once I getting fencing tightened up, was holding off but with mt cranium after getting of the fence re the cold snap coming it’s a case of using the grass now our losing it

alps

jaymla627 wrote: »

All cows are going out here tomorw once I getting fencing tightened up, was holding off but with mt cranium after getting of the fence re the cold snap coming it’s a case of using the grass now our losing it

If it comes as cold as suggested, is everyone here convinced we'll loose it? What we have built up outside is a vital cog in our winter budget...

Loosing it will be like loosing a pit of silage...

Brought home weanlings 2 days ago and we are strip grazing them on milking block, but to put into dry cows seems wasreful

Mooooo

alps wrote: »

If it comes as cold as suggested, is everyone here convinced we'll loose it? What we have built up outside is a vital cog in our winter budget...

Loosing it will be like loosing a pit of silage...

Brought home weanlings 2 days ago and we are strip grazing them on milking block, but to put into dry cows seems wasreful

In a better position than some 're silage here but will do a walk and put weanlings out first, as conditions are good will go with slurry as soon as contractor can arrive. Watch the forecast after that really. Don't think skinning the place yet is the right approach, but if silage is tight maybe it's a way of hedging your bets, I dunno

alps

Critical decisions to be made....

Can we simplify?

Who believes we would have grass DRY MATTER loss in the event of a very cold spell?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Great presentation by John Roche on marginal milk at the IGA conference.

jaymla627

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Great presentation by John Roche on marginal milk at the IGA conference.

Is he still using his outdated research from mid 00’s his conversion ratios for a kg of meal to a litre of milk are just a tad bit bias towards the grass based mantra

Buford T. Justice XIX

jaymla627 wrote: »

Is he still using his outdated research from mid 00’s his conversion ratios for a kg of meal to a litre of milk are just a tad bit bias towards the grass based mantra

He has research from the last decade on response to meal but their focus in on predominantly grazing animals rather than the higher input in your system.

This was his centrepiece

yosemitesam1

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

He has research from the last decade on response to meal but their focus in on predominantly grazing animals rather than the higher input in your system.

This was his centrepiece

What's on the other side of the page?

Most of their work is based off comparing diets with equal ME so not really fair comparison

stretch film

alps wrote: »

Critical decisions to be made....

Can we simplify?

Who believes we would have grass DRY MATTER loss in the event of a very cold spell?

That's the question .
Never saw grass as scorched like it was in spring 10.
I remember Michael o d in Moorpark putting a surprisingly high feed value on it.
With silage stocks good enough here I'll take a slow/late , but dry, spring any day.
Every mouth full will be used as opposed to last year's slopfest.

Gawddawggonnit

Anyone any experience of Q Fever?

Mooooo

Never heard of it, Google says it's zoonotic.

whelan2

I put my milkers out today. Have an oil leak on the scrapers which seems to be underground. Drizzling a bit

Keepgrowing

Panch18 wrote: »

Keepgrowing wrote: »

Using sawdust in morning and dusting with Agrical in afternoon

Any problems with the sawdust in the slurry after??

Never noticed. Wouldn’t be massive amounts used.

Timmaay

whelan2 wrote: »

I put my milkers out today. Have an oil leak on the scrapers which seems to be underground. Drizzling a bit

Your the talk of the parish this morning I'm sure, Who does she think she is with her cows out the start of Jan, they'll all die/plough up the place etc ha

whelan2

Timmaay wrote: »

Your the talk of the parish this morning I'm sure, Who does she think she is with her cows out the start of Jan, they'll all die/plough up the place etc ha

Aye, she only brought them in at the end of November and her with a wet farm. Got the oil leak sorted was handy enough in the end, pipe blew off a ram

Reggie.

whelan2 wrote: »

Aye, she only brought them in at the end of November and her with a wet farm. Got the oil leak sorted was handy enough in the end, pipe blew off a ram

Ya won't be that lucky again

Gawddawggonnit

Anyone know how much grass was grown and utilised on their farm in 2018?

Anyone go to the IGA conference?
Is it still sponsored by Yara?

whelan2

Left in my profit monitor figures to teagasc there, advisor said I'm the only one so far with 0 purchased forage figure for 2018

Buford T. Justice XIX

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Anyone know how much grass was grown and utilised on their farm in 2018?

Anyone go to the IGA conference?
Is it still sponsored by Yara?

Iirc, 12 tonnes grown, utilised was 8.5t.


Yara still sponsoring.


And hats still free:)