This is a subscriber-only article
Increasing butterfat and protein levels in milk is an area of focus for several farmers in the Dairylink Ireland programme.
Compared to June, July and August last year, average butterfat and protein levels over the past three months have increased by 0.21% and 0.24% to 3.41% and 3.96% respectively on Bill Brown’s farm near Millisle, Co Down.
What does this mean?
In financial terms, this has delivered an additional £2,834 from component payments alone, which is worth an extra 1.13p/l above base price over the period.
Although breeding policy has changed, this has not affected milk composition as heifers bred for increased milk solids are not in the milking herd yet.
A tightened autumn calving period has meant that more cows were in late lactation this summer, which has helped increase percentage butterfat and protein over the three months, compared to the same period last year.
A key factor
Another key factor is an increase in both the amount and and quality of grazed grass in cows’ diets this year. The high energy and digestibility content of grass, especially early in the grazing season, can increase milk protein levels substantially.
Improved access
Better grazing infrastructure has allowed improved access to paddocks and for concentrates to be substituted with more grass.
The grass quality has been improved by addressing soil fertility and monitoring pre and post grazing covers more closely.
Focus on grazing
The focus on grazed grass on the Brown farm also reduced total concentrate levels by 5.2 tonnes in June and July, compared to 2016 levels. Milk yield was the same as last year’s levels over the period and reduced concentrates delivered a saving of around £1,200.
Calving
Calving will begin in earnest this week with 35 cows due to calve by the end of September and 95 due by the end of October. There are only seven cows calved so far, with 120 cows dry and 45 cows milking at present.
This is the lowest number of milking cows I have had on the farm for a long time and is a result of the calving period continuing to tighten.
I also gave a few lower body condition score cows and high somatic cell count cows a longer dry period of eight weeks this year.
Breeding let slip
Breeding was let slip by three weeks last year to move to a more compact autumn-calving block and late calvers were culled to address it at the other end.
There will be 160 cows calved by the end of December, meaning we have made good progress to produce more milk in the autumn and winter months by moving from a 60:40 autumn-spring split to an 80:20 split.
Over 60% of the herd will be eligible for breeding at the start of December which should give a good number of earlier autumn-calvers next year.
Holstein bulls used
Around half of the 45 maiden heifers coming forward are sired by Holstein bulls and the rest are from high-EBI bulls, such as Lucky Whistler and Lucky Gloss.
High-EBI bulls have been used to try to develop a cow that will capitalise on grass and produce 8,000 litres from 2t of meal.
Heifers
The maiden heifers were weighed last week and averaged 347kg.
There were a few outliers with three under 300kg and two over 400kg, but they are a uniform group overall and most are close to the average weight.
A batch of 20 that were lighter at the last weighing in May were put on 1kg of concentrates per day to push on growth rates and this has worked well with both groups now on par.
The groups have been joined together again and all 45 heifers have been on 1kg of concentrates per day while weather has been poor.
Ideal weight for breeding
The ideal weight for breeding is 375-380kg (60% of mature body weight).
Heifers are well on target to achieve this, requiring less than 0.5kg daily liveweight gain on average.
As growth rates could move backwards at housing, heifers will be housed in the next few weeks to allow time to acclimatise and weights will be closely monitored before breeding.
If growth rates remain ahead of target, there is the option to begin breeding a week earlier at the end of November.
Weather and supplementary feed
Silage was offered to milking cows last week to keep feed intakes and yields up due to wet weather. Around 4kgDM of good-quality bales that were made from surplus grass this year were offered to cows after milking.
The buffer feeding and wet weather affected clean-outs in some paddocks, especially in heavier covers.
Another factor is that the milking herd is small at present and it can be hard to allocate adequate grass and give access to drinkers in some paddocks.
Although it has been wet, ground conditions have not deteriorated too badly and most cows have remained at grass.
Only the seven freshly calved cows are housed by night.
Dry cows are also at grass and cows are only housed around three weeks before calving and are fed lower-quality silage and minerals.
SHARING OPTIONS: