Grazing conditions on most Dairylink Ireland farms are ideal at present and cows are generally out during the day and housed at night.

The plan on most programme farms is for freshly calved cows to be housed full-time this week, with late-lactation cows left to graze off remaining covers.

Covers are strong on some farms and with cows being fed silage at night, clean-outs in paddocks aren’t great. Heifers are being used by some farmers to tidy up paddocks after cows.

Silage samples from Dairylink farms are being tested at present for forage analysis ahead of winter feed planning. Mineral analysis is also being done on silage samples this year as part of developing herd health plans on phase two programme farms.

Dairylink adviser Conail Keown points out that concentrates are included in diets to supplement forage, so analysing silage is essential to know how much supplementation is needed.

He gives the example of a programme farm last year where two different cuts of silage both analysed at 28% dry matter (DM).

One sample had metabolisable energy of 11.9MJ/kg DM and the other was 10.8MJ/kg DM. For a cow yielding 30 litres/day, 7kg/cow/day of concentrate was needed of the better-quality silage, compared with 10kg/cow/day for the other.

On Dairylink farms where there is no automatic feed-to-yield system, cows are being grouped to ensure concentrates are being fed efficiently.

This means that stale cows are not being overfed and early-lactation cows are being fed correctly.

In the longer term, Conail is making programme farmers look critically at their calving profile to see if it is delivering for them in terms of being able to increase feed efficiency and improve herd fertility.

Weekly roundup

  • Early-lactation cows are being housed on most Dairylink farms full-time this week.
  • Grazing conditions are excellent on most programme farms and stale cows will remain at grass.
  • Silage samples are being analysed ahead of winter feed planning.
  • Fodder budgets have been updated and most programme farms have enough winter feed.
  • Farmer focus: James King, Ballymena, Co Antrim

    There are 43 cows calved so far this autumn on James King’s farm near Ballymena. All milking cows are still at grass during the day and are fed 5t of silage at night.

    The whole herd is averaging 22.1 litres from 6.2kg of concentrates. Some early-lactation cows are hitting close to 40 litres and the feed-to-yield system is allowing them to get up to 13kg of concentrates in the parlour.

    The herd will be split this weekend, with freshly-calved cows housed full-time. The rest of the herd should be able to remain at grass until the beginning of November. James will use heifers to tidy up paddocks that aren’t cleaned out properly.

    The ideal grazing conditions this autumn have also reduced demand on fodder. An updated fodder budget in mid-September showed a marginal fodder deficit on the King farm for a projected five-and-a-half-month winter.

    This calculation assumed that 40 acres of silage that was still to be cut would yield five bales per acre. When this was cut at the end of September, there were 50 bales more than expected.

    This means James has enough fodder to take him into April. In a normal year, cows can get out from mid-March, so he should have enough silage for the winter.

    Calving profile

    A key area that James wants to make improvements in over the next three years is herd fertility. The aim is to tighten the calving profile so that cows which are slow to get in calf leave the herd. This will reduce the calving interval, which stands at 420 days at present, with the target to reach 380 days.

    Calving currently starts in early September and some cows are still calving down in April. An option being considered by James is to buy in around 30 springing heifers to replace later-calving cows.

    Replacing these cows with bought-in stock that are calving at the right time would allow James to make quick progress in establishing a tighter autumn-calving profile.

    However, he would have to wait until the spring to sell the later calvers, so it would mean carrying extra stock this winter, which has to be weighed up against the cost of buying in extra fodder.

    James is already making progress with having replacement heifers calving early and in a compact block. There were 54 heifers born last year, which will be ready for service at the end of November.

    The plan is to use prostaglandin-based synchronisation to get these heifers served and in-calf early, with sweeper bulls introduced after one cycle.

    Sexed semen is used on the farm and there is a uniform group of heifers on the ground for next year too. Of the 43 calves so far, 38 are heifers. There are only two weeks of dairy-bred calves left, with the rest of the herd due to beef bulls.

    Read more

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