Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Say my name

alps wrote: »

Could you be grazing tighter? Are you leaving roughage behind?

I'm leaving nothing behind. That's kind of my trouble it's all dark green fresh grass.

I was delighted I was getting better growth and colouring with every round of grazing/application. But now I've hit a wall I never thought possible especially when no N was being applied.
And i went on the 16 as in the previous round I was in the teens. I should have stayed on a 13.
Nitrogen mineralization teagasc call it.

blackdog1

stanflt wrote: »

For the last few years we’ve been breeding smaller cows with extremely higher milk sub index- these cows aren’t preforming as well as historical cows and the milk and fertility index definitely isn’t working- cows are becoming less responsive to feeding and therefor becoming less efficient- feel really let down by ICBF as they keep ignoring my questions

What do you put this down to Stan? Genomics? poor Genetics or too much focus on fertility over production from ICBF?

Mf310

Say my name wrote: »

I'm leaving nothing behind. That's kind of my trouble it's all dark green fresh grass.

I was delighted I was getting better growth and colouring with every round of grazing/application. But now I've hit a wall I never thought possible especially when no N was being applied.
And i went on the 16 as in the previous round I was in the teens. I should have stayed on a 13.
Nitrogen mineralization teagasc call it.

Milk urea shot from 31 to 56 and 54 in the last 2 collections, not worrying too much, looking at my graphs on glanbia I had much the same this time last year urea shot from 42 to 58 this same week and scanning went very good following that. Would prefer it to be lower alright strange seeing you with high ureas with no fert in last few rounds.

Mooooo

Meal going up to 16% shouldn't have much of an impact unless you are feeding a good bit of it. Urea 29 here on last result. What is your rotation length?

mf240

Would a bale of straw for them to pull at be a help

Say my name

Mf310 wrote: »

Milk urea shot from 31 to 56 and 54 in the last 2 collections, not worrying too much, looking at my graphs on glanbia I had much the same this time last year urea shot from 42 to 58 this same week and scanning went very good following that. Would prefer it to be lower alright strange seeing you with high ureas with no fert in last few rounds.

A teagasc man told a derogation group of us. You can be an organic farmer and still have high soil nitrogen and leaching.
I don't know if he meant from legumes or were bacteria included in that but that stuck with me. Bacteria dies it releases it's nutrients to the plant. Bacteria in conditions we've been having warm and damp multiply x2 every 20 minutes. If there's a food source they'll keep multiplying.

Say my name

Mooooo wrote: »

Meal going up to 16% shouldn't have much of an impact unless you are feeding a good bit of it. Urea 29 here on last result. What is your rotation length?

I think it's around 23 / 24 days. I'm not taking notes. Just reacting to what's in front of me.
3 - 4kgs.

Say my name

mf240 wrote: »

Would a bale of straw for them to pull at be a help

Ah it would of course.

But with the weather gone this way. I'll see what the next collection will be first.
It's not really a major panic.
Worse problems to have.

Castlekeeper

Thats amazing Say my name, the weather has been almost tropical though
A bale of silage or 5 would sort it too!
This is my driest field on the side if the hill.
Decision made, into the house it is, freshly power washed and all!

stanflt

blackdog1 wrote: »

What do you put this down to Stan? Genomics? poor Genetics or too much focus on fertility over production from ICBF?

Reliability or complete lack of- also I feel these figures for Irish bulls are being artificially high to promote sales of genomic bulls- every year we see the latest next bull of x ebi in the catelogs that everyone wants- these bulls never make it as daughter proven

Green&Red

Lads, how much of an effect has earthing in the parlour on cell count?

GrasstoMilk

stanflt wrote: »

Reliability or complete lack of- also I feel these figures for Irish bulls are being artificially high to promote sales of genomic bulls- every year we see the latest next bull of x ebi in the catelogs that everyone wants- these bulls never make it as daughter proven

Doubt you were complaining when they came looking for bull calves for ai?

alps

Green&Red wrote: »

Lads, how much of an effect has earthing in the parlour on cell count?

Massive..

You couldn't possibly have enough earthing including metal mesh everywhere the cows stand and particularly where the stand and touch metal at the same time..

ted_182

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Doubt you were complaining when they came looking for bull calves for ai?

Acquiescence

Does anyone have experience of both Herdwatch and Herdapp?

I've been procrastinating on which one to go for for a few years at this stage.

The next Herdwatch Next Gen App seems like it has a better UI and I'm considering just pulling the trigger.

Would I be right in saying the ICBF sync isn't as frequent with Herdwatch?

stanflt

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Doubt you were complaining when they came looking for bull calves for ai?

I found this very appropriate

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Doubt you were complaining when they came looking for bull calves for ai?

I'd say you would easily lose 150 plus kilos of ms in a high input system with the smaller lighter high ebi heifers vs heifers bred of American genetics all things been equal, if you calved in 40 high ebi heifers vs your more extreme heifer of international bulls your talking a loss of 20k plus easily in milk sales, you'd need to be shifting alot of bulls into ai yearly to compensate for that

Timmaay

alps wrote: »

Massive..

You couldn't possibly have enough earthing including metal mesh everywhere the cows stand and particularly where the stand and touch metal at the same time..

Cows hoofs are like 4 massive earthing rods straight to the ground (unlike say humans wearing rubber boots which are largely insulators), so any bit of stray voltage the cows will feel a hell of alot worse than you will.

GrasstoMilk

jaymla627 wrote: »

I'd say you would easily lose 150 plus kilos of ms in a high input system with the smaller lighter high ebi heifers vs heifers bred of American genetics all things been equal, if you calved in 40 high ebi heifers vs your more extreme heifer of international bulls your talking a loss of 20k plus easily in milk sales, you'd need to be shifting alot of bulls into ai yearly to compensate for that

Why such a focus on output? I've yet to see any proof that the highest output leaves the highest profit.
I'd be quite happy with a heifer that can do min 400kgs in her first lactation.

Atm it's looking like the herd here this year will do 530 kg from 1t meal. Herd av lactation is 3.1

I see no reason why they couldnt av 570/580 kgs as a mature herd of 4.5 lactation +

I'd be very happy with that for a grass based spring herd, we might feed a bit more meal but it wont be much.

Cant see much wrong with what ebi is delivering for my herd and how its progressing

C4d78

jaymla627 wrote: »

I'd say you would easily lose 150 plus kilos of ms in a high input system with the smaller lighter high ebi heifers vs heifers bred of American genetics all things been equal, if you calved in 40 high ebi heifers vs your more extreme heifer of international bulls your talking a loss of 20k plus easily in milk sales, you'd need to be shifting alot of bulls into ai yearly to compensate for that

Are you assuming fertility is the same in extreme heifers v’s high EBI low maintenance heifers in these calculations.
Also are both types of heifers your comparing going to have the same cost of production/ year.
All well and good having the extra production but production is vanity and profit is sanity !!

blackdog1

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Why such a focus on output? I've yet to see any proof that the highest output leaves the highest profit.
I'd be quite happy with a heifer that can do min 400kgs in her first lactation.

Atm it's looking like the herd here this year will do 530 kg from 1t meal. Herd av lactation is 3.1

I see no reason why they couldnt av 570/580 kgs as a mature herd of 4.5 lactation +

I'd be very happy with that for a grass based spring herd, we might feed a bit more meal but it wont be much.

Cant see much wrong with what ebi is delivering for my herd and how its progressing

I'm doing 610kgs ms delivered last year. 1.5 tonne of meal average lactation of 3. Just drying my top 2nd calver. Same meal she's done over 700kg of milk solids in under 300 days. You don't need massive feeding for lots of milk solids.

stanflt

blackdog1 wrote: »

I'm doing 610kgs ms delivered last year. 1.5 tonne of meal average lactation of 3. Just drying my top 2nd calver. Same meal she's done over 700kg of milk solids in under 300 days. You don't need massive feeding for lots of milk solids.

1.5 ton of meal is fairly massive tbh


Greengrass the results from the profit monitors show no difference in profit per litre from well managed low - medium or high output farms except that if all 3 farmers had 100 cow herds the high imput farmer would have twice as much profit as the low output farmer

green daries

stanflt wrote: »

I found this very appropriate

Even more appropriate is the admission of massive problems with the ebi system printed in the journal ðŸ˜႒

green daries

alps wrote: »

Massive..

You couldn't possibly have enough earthing including metal mesh everywhere the cows stand and particularly where the stand and touch metal at the same time..

Absolutely as Alps said new build here a few years ago and the difference between the old badly earned parlour and the new one is night and day

green daries

blackdog1 wrote: »

I'm doing 610kgs ms delivered last year. 1.5 tonne of meal average lactation of 3. Just drying my top 2nd calver. Same meal she's done over 700kg of milk solids in under 300 days. You don't need massive feeding for lots of milk solids.

Those figures are a much truer than any other lads are willing to admit in either low or high production systems (not profit ).
in my opinion
In Ireland there's nearly always going to be a weather event of some kind that will entail dairy farmers to heavily supplement cows at grass be it silage straw meal beet tmr (whichever is your preferred poison)

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

Cows hoofs are like 4 massive earthing rods straight to the ground (unlike say humans wearing rubber boots which are largely insulators), so any bit of stray voltage the cows will feel a hell of alot worse than you will.

What’s the solution where there’s no metal grid in the passages?

blackdog1

stanflt wrote: »

1.5 ton of meal is fairly massive tbh


Greengrass the results from the profit monitors show no difference in profit per litre from well managed low - medium or high output farms except that if all 3 farmers had 100 cow herds the high imput farmer would have twice as much profit as the low output farmer

Those figures are for autumn calvers (1.5 Tonne) . the spring calvers are on 1.2 tonne. Feed 4 kg a day. i'm quite happy with my system still think i could be getting more if i wasn't batch feeding and had field to yield. also the extra 300 kg i feed to the winter is costing me between 16-18 cent a kg and every litre they produce over the winter is giving me a 5.6c bonus.

stanflt

blackdog1 wrote: »

Those figures are for autumn calvers (1.5 Tonne) . the spring calvers are on 1.2 tonne. Feed 4 kg a day. i'm quite happy with my system still think i could be getting more if i wasn't batch feeding and had field to yield. also the extra 300 kg i feed to the winter is costing me between 16-18 cent a kg and every litre they produce over the winter is giving me a 5.6c bonus.

Sssshhh don’t be letting people know that it’s profitable to feed cows

richie123

stanflt wrote: »

Sssshhh don’t be letting people know that it’s profitable to feed cows

There's lads feeding 1.5 tonne to freisin bulls.you can imagine what the profit margins are like !

Timmaay

Green&Red wrote: »

What’s the solution where there’s no metal grid in the passages?

As well as plenty of good earths, the main thing is to ensure all metal in the parlour is bonded together to ensure that if there is any stray voltage there won't be a voltage difference. If say the feed troughs and the parlour frame had a voltage difference of 10v due to like a feeder that isn't wired or sealed properly and water has gone in, if nether are connected together with a good earth, then the fastest path to even out that voltage would be straight though the cow which will drive her nuts. Very good explanation on it all here:
https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/farm-buildings/facilities-fittings--services/electricity-on-farms-stray-voltage-etc/teagasc---stray-electricity/