The July milk cheque of €60,000 landed into the farm account. Unfortunately, it’s one of those years in Kilkenny when there are more euros going out than coming in.

This week, the €50,000 overdraft is extended to the last, the overdraft "plus" facility is in use, and we have started to draw down from the deposit account.

This is the first time we have had to use the overdraft facility to any great extent on the farm since the start of the project over eight years ago.

Feed

This week, a load of coarse mix landed in the yard at almost €300/t retail, before feed-out costs and hassle. Normally at this time of the year the diet should be grazed grass at half the price and a much easier time for farm workers.

The July milk cheque is made up by a base July milk price and a mix of fixed milk prices. The base manufacturing price for the farm is at 35.36c/l ex-VAT compared to 39.4c/l for July 2017.

The rest of milk cheque prices are a mix of fixed milk scheme prices ranging from 33 to 35c/l. As it stands right now for the farm, two-thirds of the July cheque is made up of fixed milk prices.

Milk test

The last milk test (29 Aug) shows a result of about 18.7kg per cow at 4.04% protein up from 3.92% protein, 4.71% fat which is down from 4.75%, so that is essentially around 1.7kg MS/cow. Cell count is at 178 SCC, 7 TBC and 4.78% lactose.

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