The milkers didn’t get out for grass on Thursday but they got out for one grazing on Friday evening and Saturday as there was no rain Thursday night or Friday at Greenfield farm in Kilkenny.

There are still between eight to 10 grazings left with about 5ha of grass remaining. This grass is growing since late September so it has to be grazed off. Already it is beginning to deteriorate in the sward, and won’t last until February. There is a cover of between 2,000 and 2,200kg per hectare on these paddocks.

Baled silage

The cows are in on the topless cubicles and eating the purchased baled silage that is arriving from Donegal at €45 per bale, with 40 bales coming in each lorryload.

This is supplemented with 5kg of 18% protein nut in the parlour.

The last 20t load (22 November) landed at €325 retail price, up from €319t for the load that landed in early November.

The challenge for the lads on the farm is to have the cows hungry when going out to graze. Going out full of silage is no good for the cows or the paddock.

Milk statement

The October milk statement landed into the account and the cheque came to €52,000 for the 115,163 litres. To date, 1.3m litres of milk has been sold this year.

The October price works out at 45c/l including VAT. Remember about 30% of the annual supply is in fixed milk price schemes and the prices for these schemes were all below the market manufacturing price.

There was up to 4 c/litre of a difference between one of the schemes.

Milk test

The last milk test (28 November) shows a result of about 1.4kg of milk solids per cow (14kg per cow at 4.29% protein, down from 4.48%, 5.66% fat up from 5.31%).

The latest cell count is at 127 SCC, 16 TBC and 4.64% lactose. All the percentages slipped down a little again in the last week as more silage crept into the diet.