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A couple of weeks before calving starts is the best time to crunch the numbers on your business.
This allows for two things.
Firstly, it allows you plan a little before you start your main spending spree (February to May) and, secondly, it makes you realise the profit or lack of profit in your farm business.
This exercise is completely focused on the good health of your business and is not for bragging rights or comparing with the neighbours.
I don’t really care how you do it as long as you are truthful with yourself on how it’s completed.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are the best in the world.
Put your total figures down for all your output and costs and calculate out each on (A) a per kg of milk solids (MS) figure and (B) a €/ha figure. These should be the best two measures of your business health.
Parlour plan for future
Parlour installers are flat out putting in new machines and expanding existing parlours during the dry period for spring-calving farms.
Investment in parlours – keep it away from winter housing and make it stand alone; otherwise you are looking for trouble.
The number of farms I have walked into and the parlour is cocked up right beside the cubicle shed with a big bulk tank in front and a slatted tank behind.
Walls in front and behind is not a good design for future proofing your investment to make it continue to return money for your business.
Do you know anyone who ever built a smaller parlour? Every parlour for the last 40 years has grown bigger and if you put walls in front and tanks behind you make it difficult and costly to make changes.
Watch for over-fat in-calf heifers
If you had heifers on good grass during the summer and they subsequently moved indoors on good grass silage there is the chance that you could have over-fat heifers now.
Having heifers calving down too fat can lead to many problems.
Firstly, problems can often arise during the calving process. Too much fat around the pelvic channel reduces the space available to the calf coming out.
Secondly, in terms of metabolic diseases, over-fat equals knock-on health problems.
Thirdly, as the heifer loses condition score, too much of a change in condition score post-calving will have negative consequences on fertility.
So again the key is to batch your heifers. In spring-calving herds the first of the heifers should about one month from calving so now you are growing the calf more than the cow.
Therefore it is best to cut out meal feeding unless undersized heifers need a 1kg or 2kg of oats. Batch heifers on calving date and feed according to needs.
The weighing scales can be your friend to get a good handle on weights. You’ll soon see the range in your batch of heifers. The best will be heading for over 550kg while late March and April born heifers might only be 400kg to 450kg.
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