This is a subscriber-only article
Farmers spend 80% of their time worrying about things that are of only 20% importance to their business.
This was the message from Dairy NZ researcher John Roche. Dairy NZ is the Teagasc equivalent in New Zealand. He was speaking on Tuesday at a forum and farm walk in Tipperary organised by LIC Ireland.
John went through the importance of the understanding the system (stocking rate, nutrition and grassland management) when dairy farming and picking a system that suits your abilities and that of the farm.
He said that comparative stocking rate (CSR) should be used as a measure of intensity.
CSR is worked out by multiplying the average weight of the herd by the stocking rate and dividing by the total amount of feed available on the farm per hectare. So, this is grass grown, bought-in silage, silage from outfarms and purchased meal.
The optimum
He said that on research experiments on stocking rate, the optimum was to have a CSR of between 75kg and 80kg LWT per tonne of feed dry matter (kgLWT/tDM).
“When we published these results, we noticed that the feed industry pounced on them and convinced farmers that were stocked higher than this to put in more supplement to reduce their CSR, which was a substantial system change because on the research experiment there was no supplement being fed,” John said.
“We looked at it at farm level and have since revised the targets. For farms not importing any feed, the CSR should be 85kgLWT/tDM and on farms buying in some feed, the CSR should be 90kg to 95kgLWT/tDM but if you’re in a high rainfall area or on heavy soils, the CSR should be reduced by 10%,” he said.
On feed use, he said farmers need to be wary about feeding too much supplement.
“500kg per cow is a reasonable amount. It’s 10% of her overall diet. So, if milk price falls you are not very exposed on feed costs and if feed costs rise you are not very exposed either.”
He said that when working out the response from concentrate, feed prices should be factored in at 1.6 times their actual cost.
He said that, based on Irish profit monitor data, for every €1 spent on feed, total costs increase by €1.60 due to “sticky costs” associated with feeding.
Stocking rate
When asked about farmers pushing up stocking rate but filling the deficits with good-quality round bales, he said he would be wary of it as the margin on the extra milk being produced is often very small.
He said that even where outside land is owned, a rental charge should accrue to the dairy business.
He also said that having to put in extra supplement like silage was adding extra complications to the system.
Monitor farm
John was speaking at the second farm walk held on Joe and Kathleen Kirwan’s farm at Horse and Jockey, Thurles. The Kirwan’s are monitor farmers in a new LIC programme.
Joe Kirwan speaking at an LIC farm walk on his farm at Horse and Jockey, Thurles, Co Tipperary.
They are increasing cow numbers from 70 to 220, having taken on a new leased block.
Cow type has also changed on the Kirwan farm, with a move away from Holstein Friesian towards Jersey crossbreds.
The herd is on track to produce 459kg of milk solids per cow this year from 600kg of meal fed. Empty rate was a disappointing 14%, which Joe is putting down to a severe phosphorus deficiency that caused one cow to die.
SHARING OPTIONS: