Slurry spreading in December - what's wrong with it?

Everyone is with Trump

People must remember that winter started early this year. My incalf heifers are inside a month earlier compared to the past few years. I have a lot of storage but it will well full by mid January. And when the tanks are full they have to be spread, wet or dry.

Surely there is no one on here who thinks it's good practice to have animals standing in shiiite up over the slats

I just thought that if you are tuned in enough to know what an agitator is, you probably are tuned in enough to find the answer to your question fairly easily. Your average person could probably look at construction site and identify a JCB or a cement mixer. But if they see a little bar on the ground and know "That's a snaptie for shuttering" then they probably know a tiny bit at least.

There is a closed season for spreading slurry because that is the time of year when typically the slurry might be more likely to cause some pollution. The reason is that there is more rain, and the plants are not growing so they do not absorb the nutrients before it can be washed out.

There is a short closed season for dairy washings as well. That one is kind of inconsequential.

Slurry tends to run off the land in winter owing to higher rainfall and therefore sodden soil.

This year w had a very very wet summer, so may farmers couldn't spread slurry as it would have run straight off the land and into the nearest river.

I'd guess the farmer you saw was taking advantage, legally or not, of the drier conditions to get the slurry out. Although whether his land is dry enough for it to be beneficial and not end up as runoff is a moot point.

I'm noticing a trend of posters with no posting history in the forum arriving asking seemingly innocuous questions of fact.

It was going on in the Farm Payments 23 thread the other day which I take particular exception to as that is industry specific for a reason and not a general discussion on the merits or demerits of the CAP.

No other forum has to put up with this level of trolling by bad actors.

It needs to stop @greysides

Not looking to get into the in and outs of anyones slurry storage. Being “fully housed” from mid September was a rarity, as you say you were on off grazing for October so not fully housed. Exceptions prove the rule.

And if fully housed from then, you just about have enough to get you to the deadline mid January then you are a little tight on storage in this outlier of a year. Easy get caught this year, not being fully empty as cattle were housed for a week here or there in the summer and then a window to spread never arrived coupled with an early winter.

But tanks should be empty on October 1st 893 as you alluded to. That is the great debate this year on another thread. Even in North Wexford I had to carry in about 25% of my storage full on October 1st due to no weather window to spread the tanks where buffer feeding was happening. Add in 9 days of 60 animals in as well. On off grazing was isually as little as 2 to 3 hours a day for the cows.

As far as I know there are penalties but I couldn't tell you how much or ever heard of anyone around me getting caught. I wouldn't be worrying about it

And that aviation sector had their emissions not classified as only internal Ireland flights are counted.

Meanwhile the agri sector is the only sector that takes the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and puts it into soil, plants, animal, people mass. Agri sector should probably be minus 10% and the aviation sector then 60%.

Farmers were badly let down by and trodden on as they had no money behind them representing them at talks and meetings unlike the others.

What on earth has the second part of your post got to do with the first part?

So bloody defensive its actually offensive as this stage.

So true