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We are in the midst of trying to get the last of our silage in at the moment. The season has been a bit of a challenge to date, but generally we have managed to get it harvested in good shape.
Of course you can’t have it every way, because the moisture is also needed. In recent weeks growth had slowed down, with things getting a bit dry. Growth rates dipped below 50kg DM/ha and we had to graze some of the second cut.
We have changed our fertiliser regime a bit. We were applying it every week, fertilising anything that had been grazed in the previous seven days
However, the rain pushed grass greatly to the point where we are now struggling with surplus. With all the silage now cut we will start to build our autumn grass and will initially spread 25kgN over all cut ground to kick things off.
We have changed our fertiliser regime a bit. We were applying it every week, fertilising anything that had been grazed in the previous seven days. That is great in theory, but never seemed to be quite right in practice, and as a result some paddocks were getting missed for various reasons.
Instead, we now fertilise the whole farm every three weeks. Before starting, we go around and open all the gaps, making the whole operation a lot more time efficient.
Yield
Milk is holding reasonably well at 17l/cow, with butterfat at 4.81% and protein at 3.91%, giving a milk solids figure of 1.53kg/cow.
The cows are getting about 0.8kg/day of concentrate, mainly for cow flow through the parlour. We are just about on track to achieve our target of 420kg/cow of milk solids for the year.
Labour
So far in 2019 we’ve had some excellent young people working on placement from different courses.
Matthew and Eoin, who are from the Republic of Ireland, and Simon and Kate from Switzerland, join Lorraine, Jenny and Karl. It is great to have an enthusiastic team who are hungry for knowledge, work hard and just really enjoy being on the farm.
We have them doing everything from milking, to selecting cows for breeding, grass measuring/allocation and sorting out our weed problems. They attack everything with enthusiasm.
We are going through a staff restructure as one of our team is retiring this year
Michael Malone is our new farm manager, who’s starting in mid-August. We are going through a staff restructure as one of our team is retiring this year.
This will allow me to concentrate on the youngstock and be a support to Michael as well.
This will be a change for me, not to be so involved in the day-to-day activity of milking cows, but new people will bring new enthusiasm and drive, and every business needs that from time to time.
Profit
Overall, we are pleased with how this year is shaping up and profits seem to be good, despite a fairly average milk price.
World milk supply seems to be tightening a bit and hopefully this will result in some positive movement of prices going forward.
Arla milk collection service is some of the best we’ve seen
We are currently supplying Lactalis in Stranraer, however, our milk is actually collected by Arla and goes into Lockerbie Creamery.
Arla milk collection service is some of the best we’ve seen and the operation is to be commended for that.
It is a good collaboration to cut transport costs, but if ever we were in any doubt that milk is just a commodity product, this certainly puts it to bed.
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