At this stage in the year, you should be around halfway through your silage stocks. Some farmers are saying that cows are going through silage fast. Remember, if silage quality is good they will eat more of it, not because they are hungry but because it is tasty. Really, silage should be fed according to need not want. There’s no point in letting fat cows get fatter and ending up running out of silage next spring when all cows need silage. My advice is to do a body condition score on the herd and split them up into three groups. One group will be cows that need to put on BCS between now and calving. The second group will be at the required BCS for calving now, so will only need a maintenance diet while the third group will have too much BCS for calving and should be fed a restricted diet.
In effect, the group on the maintenance only diet will be on restricted silage also. Cows being fed 66% DMD silage will only require around 10kgDM/day for maintenance and pregnancy. If given ad-lib access, they would probably eat 12kg to 14kg of silage per day. Cows that are at risk of being too fat should be fed a restricted diet of lower-quality silage. Restricting silage isn’t simple. There should be enough feed space for all cows to eat at the one time when silage is being fed. This is a very efficient way of using feed, but cows need to be monitored closely and reassigned to groups every few weeks.
On page 20 and 21 we profile three young Irish farmers making a success of farming in New Zealand. The three farmers featured have a number of things in common: They are technically excellent, ambitious, have very good people skills and have a clearly thought out plan for their future development. They are natural leaders. For all the talk of opportunities here, it’s hard to see how a young person could achieve what they are set to achieve in Ireland in the same time period. Scale and too high a cost base are issues, but so too is the structure of ownership and management in Ireland. While the tax incentives for leasing land are good, they are really only benefiting established farmers who can access the land for leasing. Without having built up a previous relationship, it’s very hard for a young person to get on the ladder in his or her own right. Contract milking, where a person is paid a fixed sum per kilo of milk solids produced, is an effective way of giving young people a chance to build up cash at fairly low risk to them. Farm owners in Ireland need to be more open to these kind of arrangements. If not, we will continue to see a drain of farming talent leave Ireland.
Many farmers will be happy to see the back of 2018. It has been a difficult 12 months for many farmers after the bad spring and dry summer. Costs have gone up and margins have taken a hit. The challenge for the next 12 months will be to get the costs back down. Remember, farmers that have a strong balance sheet and a low cost of production will be the last to be hit by shocks in the market. Happy new year.
At this stage in the year, you should be around halfway through your silage stocks. Some farmers are saying that cows are going through silage fast. Remember, if silage quality is good they will eat more of it, not because they are hungry but because it is tasty. Really, silage should be fed according to need not want. There’s no point in letting fat cows get fatter and ending up running out of silage next spring when all cows need silage. My advice is to do a body condition score on the herd and split them up into three groups. One group will be cows that need to put on BCS between now and calving. The second group will be at the required BCS for calving now, so will only need a maintenance diet while the third group will have too much BCS for calving and should be fed a restricted diet.
In effect, the group on the maintenance only diet will be on restricted silage also. Cows being fed 66% DMD silage will only require around 10kgDM/day for maintenance and pregnancy. If given ad-lib access, they would probably eat 12kg to 14kg of silage per day. Cows that are at risk of being too fat should be fed a restricted diet of lower-quality silage. Restricting silage isn’t simple. There should be enough feed space for all cows to eat at the one time when silage is being fed. This is a very efficient way of using feed, but cows need to be monitored closely and reassigned to groups every few weeks.
On page 20 and 21 we profile three young Irish farmers making a success of farming in New Zealand. The three farmers featured have a number of things in common: They are technically excellent, ambitious, have very good people skills and have a clearly thought out plan for their future development. They are natural leaders. For all the talk of opportunities here, it’s hard to see how a young person could achieve what they are set to achieve in Ireland in the same time period. Scale and too high a cost base are issues, but so too is the structure of ownership and management in Ireland. While the tax incentives for leasing land are good, they are really only benefiting established farmers who can access the land for leasing. Without having built up a previous relationship, it’s very hard for a young person to get on the ladder in his or her own right. Contract milking, where a person is paid a fixed sum per kilo of milk solids produced, is an effective way of giving young people a chance to build up cash at fairly low risk to them. Farm owners in Ireland need to be more open to these kind of arrangements. If not, we will continue to see a drain of farming talent leave Ireland.
Many farmers will be happy to see the back of 2018. It has been a difficult 12 months for many farmers after the bad spring and dry summer. Costs have gone up and margins have taken a hit. The challenge for the next 12 months will be to get the costs back down. Remember, farmers that have a strong balance sheet and a low cost of production will be the last to be hit by shocks in the market. Happy new year.
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