Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

I still hear pm figures discussed ….but now you mention it can’t say I’ve heard anything this year so after years maby they’ve listened …..I do know our board management determined the trading requirement figure based on profit monitor figures ….it was very vague ….gave a high figure for members to meet and thus at year end a good number of very good lads were relieved of there position

Had to laugh listening to a teagasc edge podcast where the advisors where horrified at the hired in labour costs on some farms at our above 5 cent a litre, and it needed to be got down....

All well and good if you have access to family labour/placement students to plug the gaps cheap and cheerfully, if not like 90% of farms you have to pay through the nose for labour to give yourself any semblance of a quality of life, instead of working yourself into the ground...

Perfect example here yesterday, spent the day dosing/boulising/vaccinating all stock on the farm, had relief milker in for both milkings and the wife's father for a few hours during the day doing youngstock/dry cows etc, relief milker got 120 euro for the milkings and another 120 euro to the father in law

I'd say the margins are small between the cost of meal and the capital/running costs of the zero grazer. Every farm is different of course and I suppose if you'd a big tractor and spare labour hanging about it might make sense.

Have you plenty head feed space for it

Nope. About half the space they should have tbh. But they were out during the day and weren’t coming in hungry

my feed space is shared with the cubicles and doubles up as collecting yard for the parlour. What ever can’t eat gets milked and they eat at the end. When all calved I can offer more feed space

Can't understand the logic of going out every day to draw a load of wet grass into cows when it could all be done on one day by making silage of it.

As regards the whinging about Teagasc, with the last few years all citizens lives are being dictated by a few "woke" noisy individuals since this "green" agenda took over.

Doesn't matter what walk of life you are from you must conform to the policy.

But sure if he was out grazing full time he’d be a great man, the cows are still on a full grass diet with the zero grazer so I’d say leave it play out for the year get the results for production compare them to previous years and cost differences. It might work out well for him and the rest of us might learn something. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and every farm is different.

Because paying a contractor to cut 100 acres 4 times is a serious ball of money along with still having to feed high meal

I was fairly glad of the wet grass last week and so were the cows

Banks of the Slaney on flat fields.

Your cows would be higher producing cows and would respond better to maize and other feeds better etc, it will be interesting to see how grass’s cows bred for production off grass will fair out on the zero grazing. What you described works for you would be what I imagine grass would have been doing in previous years from his posts so it’ll be interesting to see after the year which method he reckons gives the better return for his herd. You know what works best for your herd but the cow type on both your farms would be different so interesting to see what works best for two different herd types.

Tbf you wouldn’t be cutting it all 4 times ….be very interesting to get an honest assessment at end of year on the z grazing from you

Do you not have a fusion baler, for doing your own silage

or you could say if you had cows out on this type of grass, you would be bringing them in early to give them a bale of silage and an extra pull of nuts during milking. The water content in the grass would be through the roof and im sure grasstomilk has left the option of silage/maize to cows aswell.

Still going to grow 10 acres of maize. It is a great boost in energy November and spring for fresh calvers