Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

mahoney_j

Finty Lemon wrote: »

I did a bit of checking.
In 2013 the average in Dairygold was 340kg milk solids. This would have been 95% Holstein cows I would imagine.
The co-op average has risen by over 70kg milk solids since then. Protein has gone up from 3.4 to 3.59%
The average supplier now is doing as much as the top 10% back then which is quite remarkable. So todays 'goats' are much better than the 'stars' of 10 years ago. But sure thats only facts, opinions are more interesting.

10 years a long time farmers and there management styles/methods have come a long way since as have generics ,forage quality snd grassland management

green daries

Finty Lemon wrote: »

I did a bit of checking.
In 2013 the average in Dairygold was 340kg milk solids. This would have been 95% Holstein cows I would imagine.
The co-op average has risen by over 70kg milk solids since then. Protein has gone up from 3.4 to 3.59%
The average supplier now is doing as much as the top 10% back then which is quite remarkable. So todays 'goats' are much better than the 'stars' of 10 years ago. But sure thats only facts, opinions are more interesting.

So going by that reckoning you think everyone went Jersey cross and hey presto everything is sorted

green daries

Finty Lemon wrote: »

SCC is better, cow longevity is better, fertility is better.
Type is functionally better too.

As mahoney_j has said 10 years of breeding improvement in fresian holstien cows has brought about a larger part of this improvement grass management has brought another large part of it the ebi system doesn't actually push Jersey genetics any more they are promoting home grown bull calves (of which the mother isn't even scored in many cases ) the breed of a lot of these calves is fresian holstien....... so yes I still stand over the twisty goats comment

Mooooo

Cant compare pre 2015 a whole pile either, quota was what prevented herds hitting potential yields in a lot of cases, particularly in dairygold areas. We had all calves on ad lib whole milk, even into the 2010's lads were buying autumn calves here and keeping em on milk into the following year.
Protein has improved here but bf hasn't, cant tell really with overall yields as changed system as well as tb affecting herd profile. Ebi would give the impression that genetics can change fast but not the way the number of bulls coming out and bulls dropped even before daughter figures come into play for a bit of reliability. Inconsistency across batches of heifers coming in is becoming a pia as well with large number of bulls. Ai companies are coining it, with us taking the risk, and it may backfire

Finty Lemon

green daries wrote: »

So going by that reckoning you think everyone went Jersey cross and hey presto everything is sorted

No. Relatively few went Jersey. But the overall breeding programme has delivered progress. This has been based on EBI.

Gawddawggonnit

blackdog1 wrote: »

Anyone read what Aidan Brennan wrote in the back page of the journal? basically said anyone trying to get you to buy ai straws based on production figure was either delusional or try to pull a fast one on you.... don't know how he got away with printing that. On another note Dawg you might be able to answer this for me?. According to a Teagasc advisor i was talking to there is talks about raising the nitrogen limit of a cow based on her production figures i.e a cow doing 8000 litres will be 92 kg/n/ha and lower producers will be 89kgs. etc . he said the French were already doing this...??

Yes he’s correct.
It self explanatory really...a cow producing 750-800kgms will produce less manure than two crap cows producing 400kg.

Gawddawggonnit

jaymla627 wrote: »

Maybe they are getting sick of milking glorified goats, and have copped on you can buy proven international bulls for the same price instead of the ebi lucky dip bag with 15 odd bulls needing to be used to spread the risk of having alot worse goat cows if you use to much of a new hotshot bull

I’ve nothing to add about the hols v xbreds debate, but the year before last I bought a herd of holxNR and you commented that they’ll be either very good or crap...you were bang on because I’ve only 12 left. There were some first calvers that only produced 4-5k litres...

There’s some good advice to be got here in fairness.

Injuryprone

Finty Lemon wrote: »

I did a bit of checking.
In 2013 the average in Dairygold was 340kg milk solids. This would have been 95% Holstein cows I would imagine.
The co-op average has risen by over 70kg milk solids since then. Protein has gone up from 3.4 to 3.59%
The average supplier now is doing as much as the top 10% back then which is quite remarkable. So todays 'goats' are much better than the 'stars' of 10 years ago. But sure thats only facts, opinions are more interesting.

That's the most ridiculous post I've seen on this site in quite a while. In case you were unaware, 10 years ago, there was a quota in this country. Farmers just tried to produce their allowance as cheaply as possible. Which meant feeding as little ration as possible, restricting fertilizer spread to only what's needed and often drying off the herd quite early in the winter.

I took over here in 2010. The quota was 230,000. I supplied 638,000 last year off the exact same ground. Only change now is I spread about double the fertilizer, about 5 times the ration and cows are milked all year round. Sure there have been marginal improvements in stock quality, but don't be nieve enough to think that farmers these days are streets ahead of those of the previous decades

green daries

Finty Lemon wrote: »

No. Relatively few went Jersey. But the overall breeding programme has delivered progress. This has been based on EBI.

But it hasn't.........they pushed Jersey first and then that was to expensive for the ai companies to get bulls the has a row with the kiwi company and decide to change tack (which is the only thing there good at ) and go with Genomic bulls which are test bulls and are more expensive than daughter proven bulls..... Jesus wept

GrasstoMilk

green daries wrote: »

But it hasn't.........they pushed Jersey first and then that was to expensive for the ai companies to get bulls the has a row with the kiwi company and decide to change tack (which is the only thing there good at ) and go with Genomic bulls which are test bulls and are more expensive than daughter proven bulls..... Jesus wept

Can I ask whats your supplied production per cow and av lactation ?

Happy enough with what type of cow we're getting here,
Heifers need to do 400kgs and 3rd calvers close to herd av
Thats a crude barometer I go by here
They don't need to look like superstars, just be good functional cows

Correct culling of cows is as important as picking what bulls to use imo

green daries

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Can I ask whats your supplied production per cow and av lactation ?

Happy enough with what type of cow we're getting here,

You can highish yielding herd delivering 720kg milk solids to coop circa one ton fed
As I've said before you have a performance any herd would be happy with

GrasstoMilk

green daries wrote: »

You can highish yielding herd delivering 720kg milk solids to coop circa one ton fed
As I've said before you have a performance any herd would be happy with

Top performance alright
We fed 1.2 t here

green daries

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Can I ask whats your supplied production per cow and av lactation ?

Happy enough with what type of cow we're getting here,
Heifers need to do 400kgs and 3rd calvers close to herd av
Thats a crude barometer I go by here
They don't need to look like superstars, just be good functional cows

Correct culling of cows is as important as picking what bulls to use imo

Ya I don't agree with the bulls part but definitely 110%culling and not breeding replacement of the cow that might be good enough is the biggest problem on most herds no matter what breed

blackdog1

green daries wrote: »

You can highish yielding herd delivering 720kg milk solids to coop circa one ton fed
As I've said before you have a performance any herd would be happy with

What else are you feeding? I like a fair discussion and I'm assuming your feeding alot of maize with that? I produce 620kg ms a year on 1- 1. 5 tonne of meal and I feed whole crop over winter and on the shoulders.

green daries

blackdog1 wrote: »

What else are you feeding? I like a fair discussion and I'm assuming your feeding alot of maize with that? I produce 620kg ms a year on 1- 1. 5 tonne of meal and I feed whole crop over winter and on the shoulders.

Have fed some wholecrop but find it too land intensive for round here for the feed value no maize(would love maize and beet )the maize you would grow round here wouldn't even be as good as reasonable silage I suppose we buffer feed a good bit of the year with as good a silage as possible use highish protein ration and would go as high as a 24% 26%ration in the winter diet through the feeder have used wet distillers the last three years

green daries

blackdog1 wrote: »

What else are you feeding? I like a fair discussion and I'm assuming your feeding alot of maize with that? I produce 620kg ms a year on 1- 1. 5 tonne of meal and I feed whole crop over winter and on the shoulders.

Myself and a couple more farmers would be looked on as complete patients round here for producing winter milk and feeding cows
But the biggest laugh is that the low cost herds or whatever we should call them are feeding very little less meal probably not even half a tin less if the truth was told by both sides
Like fair play to GrasstoMilk there's not one of them around here that would admit to feeding that much.....but not many of them have the production figures he has

blackdog1

green daries wrote: »

Myself and a couple more farmers would be looked on as complete patients round here for producing winter milk and feeding cows
But the biggest laugh is that the low cost herds or whatever we should call them are feeding very little less meal probably not even half a tin less if the truth was told by both sides
Like fair play to GrasstoMilk there's not one of them around here that would admit to feeding that much.....but not many of them have the production figures he has

Yea think its a huge problem with the discussion. low producing herds arent telling the true amount of feed and winter herds are under stating by not including what they put in a feeder wagon. I'm in winter milk too. Anyway the discussion as usual turns into a low cost system v high input system when we all should be focusing on what rushed policies Teagasc will be pushing on us over the next couple of years in the guise of climate change. From what i see breeding policy of icbf needs to be rebalanced so that while they still have good fertility figures , they focus more on getting the production figure up so cows can convert feed to milk efficently . what i think will happen will they will try and throw the high producer under the bus to save the low cost system but what they will in fact end up doing over the long term is finsih both systems. I think a hydrid system is needed(550-650 kg of ms on 1.2 tonne of meal) and that type of radical thinking is just too much for them

green daries

blackdog1 wrote: »

Yea think its a huge problem with the discussion. low producing herds arent telling the true amount of feed and winter herds are under stating by not including what they put in a feeder wagon. I'm in winter milk too. Anyway the discussion as usual turns into a low cost system v high input system when we all should be focusing on what rushed policies Teagasc will be pushing on us over the next couple of years in the guise of climate change. From what i see breeding policy of icbf needs to be rebalanced so that while they still have good fertility figures , they focus more on getting the production figure up so cows can convert feed to milk efficently . what i think will happen will they will try and throw the high producer under the bus to save the low cost system but what they will in fact end up doing over the long term is finsih both systems. I think a hydrid system is needed(550-650 kg of ms on 1.2 tonne of meal) and that type of radical thinking is just too much for them

Couldn't agree with you more sad thing is that the system is there already its just a balanced use of proven ai bulls lot them fire them through there Genomic model if it makes them feel better but that and a sensible choice for feed, grass ,silage quality, and fertiliser choices are the answer
On a side note I dread to think about the reprocussions of protected urea and what it is going to do to water
A teagasc specialist tried to tell me it won't run off because its protected I've seen trenches washed out of fields round here ffs

blackdog1

green daries wrote: »

Couldn't agree with you more sad thing is that the system is there already its just a balanced use of proven ai bulls lot them fire them through there Genomic model if it makes them feel better but that and a sensible choice for feed, grass ,silage quality, and fertiliser choices are the answer
On a side note I dread to think about the reprocussions of protected urea and what it is going to do to water
A teagasc specialist tried to tell me it won't run off because its protected I've seen trenches washed out of fields round here ffs

Yes most things that are rushed are not good. Unfortunately and I hope it never happens but for the small farmer in the future it might be more profitable to opt out of European payments.

Morris Moss

Looks like the bellview plant will be going ahead, wonder will another objection be put forward.

jaymla627

Morris Moss wrote: »

Looks like the bellview plant will be going ahead, wonder will another objection be put forward.

They can go supreme court, at this stage I'd be starting to pour concrete and let the pricks go to the expense of getting injunctions to stop the project

Freejin

What would milk urea levels be like in herds this time of the year? Only started getting urea results last year, so new to me. Currently getting results of around 12

Siamsa Sessions

The Belview issue comes from Glanbia's poor management more than An Taisce's meddling.

An Taisce didn't encourage expansion and seek new entrants all over the country, only to realise their eyes were bigger than their belly, and they couldn't process all the milk. Neither was it An Taisce's plan B to simply pass the pain onto farmers while refusing to even consider temporarily suspending their 3.2% margin.

I don't think An Taisce were right to take advantage of the planning laws, and I've no link with them whatsoever, but Glanbia are the ones who let the farmers down here not some random little environmental group.

What kind of multinational giant like Glanbia doesn't have a proper contingency plan in place?

Mooooo

Freejin wrote: »

What would milk urea levels be like in herds this time of the year? Only started getting urea results last year, so new to me. Currently getting results of around 12

Low because of slow growth, once growth comes it will rise. Between 20or 25 and 30 is ok. Very high would be worse than low as could effect embryo survival

1373

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

The Belview issue comes from Glanbia's poor management more than An Taisce's meddling.

An Taisce didn't encourage expansion and seek new entrants all over the country, only to realise their eyes were bigger than their belly, and they couldn't process all the milk. Neither was it An Taisce's plan B to simply pass the pain onto farmers while refusing to even consider temporarily suspending their 3.2% margin.

I don't think An Taisce were right to take advantage of the planning laws, and I've no link with them whatsoever, but Glanbia are the ones who let the farmers down here not some random little environmental group.

What kind of multinational giant like Glanbia doesn't have a proper contingency plan in place?

A year of beef factory bosses running glanbia and then you’d know what bad management is .i think the co ops have done a decent job at handling the growth in milk production.

Mooooo

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

The Belview issue comes from Glanbia's poor management more than An Taisce's meddling.

An Taisce didn't encourage expansion and seek new entrants all over the country, only to realise their eyes were bigger than their belly, and they couldn't process all the milk. Neither was it An Taisce's plan B to simply pass the pain onto farmers while refusing to even consider temporarily suspending their 3.2% margin.

I don't think An Taisce were right to take advantage of the planning laws, and I've no link with them whatsoever, but Glanbia are the ones who let the farmers down here not some random little environmental group.

What kind of multinational giant like Glanbia doesn't have a proper contingency plan in place?

Disagree on the eyes bigger than the belly comment, processing and milk supply had to grow in together to be viable, couldn't build a plant before knowing milk was going to come. Bad management in handling the whole thing but blaming milk supply growth isn't correct either

Siamsa Sessions

Mooooo wrote: »

Disagree on the eyes bigger than the belly comment, processing and milk supply had to grow in together to be viable, couldn't build a plant before knowing milk was going to come. Bad management in handling the whole thing but blaming milk supply growth isn't correct either

I wouldn't blame milk suppliers for a second. The world and its mother told everyone to produce more. Before adding quietly that you should get better first before getting bigger.

It's like that Duff thing on the Simpsons. The guy shouts "DRINK DUFF", then adds softly under his breath "responsibly": https://tv.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4bacf2e5-72c2-4b63-ba99-9a9baa7f184a

dar31

Mooooo wrote: »

Disagree on the eyes bigger than the belly comment, processing and milk supply had to grow in together to be viable, couldn't build a plant before knowing milk was going to come. Bad management in handling the whole thing but blaming milk supply growth isn't correct either

tin hat time, was peak supply scheme part of a bigger play to influence courts of the detrimental effects of planning for cheese plant not going ahead, or am i giving glanbia too much credit to come up with such a plan

Grueller

dar31 wrote: »

tin hat time, was peak supply scheme part of a bigger play to influence courts of the detrimental effects of planning for cheese plant not going ahead, or am i giving glanbia too much credit to come up with such a plan

I think it may be a part of it dar. A government TD here in Wexford came out to ask An Taisce to withdraw their case as it was having a serious impact on rural families. Political pressure is never a bad thing.

Say my name

dar31 wrote: »

tin hat time, was peak supply scheme part of a bigger play to influence courts of the detrimental effects of planning for cheese plant not going ahead, or am i giving glanbia too much credit to come up with such a plan

Maybe a little bit.
More like they had this on file anyway and used the oppertunity to get it passed and put the blame on the factory going ahead.
It's all a nonsense anyway.

We're told of the health benefits of grazed grass and yet the farmer supplies the milk off grazed grass and we're told no sorry it's a commodity priced the same as milk from maize, gm and silage like the rest of the world and yea sorry supply the milk off those. We want more of those.

An taisce has their very vocal members from the dairy regions of cork. They don't like those farmers expanding. They see all the reclamation work going on to get land in grass and they just don't like it. The factory issue in kilkenny was their way of muttering something. There's a mighty influence against livestock farming too the same as most brainwashed environmentalists as well.

It's a pity an taisce hasn't some members from wexford and carlow. Where tillage farmers are able to have the highest nitrates release to waterways in the country. Plough ground in December. Wash soil into streams and rivers. Chop ditches to the scut or just take out - it's not limited to tillage farming but it's predominantly to ease machinery use.

But the flavour of all environmentalists here is anti livestock so we'll run with that.