Grass growth rate is back to around 30kg per day for the last week, which is probably half where it should be if moisture wasn’t restricting growth. If the farm had enough rain you could probably expect even higher growth rates given the expected compensatory growth rates post-drought. An average of 54kg per day is the best recorded post-drought.
While the weather has been more mixed for the last week, and there was no real intense drying sunshine, the volume of rain required to keep grass moving did not arrive on the farm. As a resul,t we have lower than required growth rates.
First-cut
To help hold some grass on the farm, first-cut silage is back in the diet and another load of beet pulp nuts have been tipped up in front of the pit as the winter feed disappears and more bare concrete appears.
The intention with upping the silage in the diet, after two weeks on very low levels, is to stretch what grass is on the farm to hopefully allow it bulk up at some stage.
The cows are going into covers of around 1,000kg or less, which means they are not long licking out what grass is allocated. The mix of first-cut silage, distillers and beet pulp nuts fills up the daily feed allocation.
The herd is looking well and there is a shine off the cows. The replacement heifers were scanned at the contract rearers and there were seven from 79 scanned empty after a nine week breeding season. The milking herd will be scanned in early September.
Grazed grass
For the last two weeks, while the diet was mostly grazed grass and nuts, the protein lifted back up that 0.20%, to 3.94%. With more grass silage back in the diet now, we can expect the protein to fall back to the 3.70 mark.
The last milk test (15 August) shows a result of about 15kg per cow at 3.94% protein (up from 3.71), at 4.84% fat which is steady, so that is essentially still around 1.4kg MS/cow. Cell count is at 151 SCC, and 9 TBC and 4.64% lactose.
Read more
Dempsey at Large: €150,000 cash loss with 300 cows
Greenfield: growing feed is a priority
Greenfield digs into cash reserves
Rain arrives in Kilkenny at last
Grass growth rate is back to around 30kg per day for the last week, which is probably half where it should be if moisture wasn’t restricting growth. If the farm had enough rain you could probably expect even higher growth rates given the expected compensatory growth rates post-drought. An average of 54kg per day is the best recorded post-drought.
While the weather has been more mixed for the last week, and there was no real intense drying sunshine, the volume of rain required to keep grass moving did not arrive on the farm. As a resul,t we have lower than required growth rates.
First-cut
To help hold some grass on the farm, first-cut silage is back in the diet and another load of beet pulp nuts have been tipped up in front of the pit as the winter feed disappears and more bare concrete appears.
The intention with upping the silage in the diet, after two weeks on very low levels, is to stretch what grass is on the farm to hopefully allow it bulk up at some stage.
The cows are going into covers of around 1,000kg or less, which means they are not long licking out what grass is allocated. The mix of first-cut silage, distillers and beet pulp nuts fills up the daily feed allocation.
The herd is looking well and there is a shine off the cows. The replacement heifers were scanned at the contract rearers and there were seven from 79 scanned empty after a nine week breeding season. The milking herd will be scanned in early September.
Grazed grass
For the last two weeks, while the diet was mostly grazed grass and nuts, the protein lifted back up that 0.20%, to 3.94%. With more grass silage back in the diet now, we can expect the protein to fall back to the 3.70 mark.
The last milk test (15 August) shows a result of about 15kg per cow at 3.94% protein (up from 3.71), at 4.84% fat which is steady, so that is essentially still around 1.4kg MS/cow. Cell count is at 151 SCC, and 9 TBC and 4.64% lactose.
Read more
Dempsey at Large: €150,000 cash loss with 300 cows
Greenfield: growing feed is a priority
Greenfield digs into cash reserves
Rain arrives in Kilkenny at last
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