Cows on once-a-day milking on the Greenfield farm

On the Greenfield farm in Kilkenny this week, there are 179 cows (60%) of the herd still milking out of the 300 cows that were milking at peak in 2014.

Two weeks ago, 31 cows were dried off and last week another 40 cows were dried off, bringing to 71 cows the total number dried off so far.

The cows dried off are mainly late January/early February-calving cows. In the next week, another bunch of milking cows will be dried off, so all cows calving prior to 15 February will be dried off at that stage.

Lactose percentage took a slight dip to 4.40% in the last test, down 0.2% from a constant 4.6% up to that. This usually signals low energy levels in feed or very low yielders. Milk processors want to keep lactose over 4.3/4.4% to optimise product quality.

In the last few weeks, 49 cows have been sold off the farm. These were a mixture of cows not in-calf (30), May calvers (eight) and cull cows (11). The average price of cows sold off the farm came in at €594.

Every year, cows scanned not in-calf have been sold relatively early in the autumn as a grass management tool to decrease stocking rate and allow autumn grass covers increase.

Milk output is potentially reduced, but the grazing season is extended for the cows that are left. This suits the Kilkenny farm as indoor milking facilities are not plush. When I called to the farm on Tuesday this week, the dry cows were on the stand-off pad and the milking cows were out grazing.

Milk yield for the last six weeks is in Figure 1. Essentially the cows have delivered between 1.2kg and 1.3kg of milk solids per cow, mainly from grazed grass over the last six weeks.

In the last two weeks, over 100mm of rain has been recorded (four inches). For the last week the cows have been getting 3kg of meal and, for the last two weeks, 5-6kg of quality grass silage bales.

This week, milking has switched to once-a-day for all cows because farm staff felt the cows were coming under pressure from the long walking distance and wet weather. Milk yield probably won’t fall too much considering yield is relatively low anyway.

The big concern at this time of the year is not to lose condition score.

Current issues

Growth rate measured 18kg per day for the last week. While growth continues, it looks like the farm will end up growing in the region of 13t of dry matter per hectare for the year. Meal fed per cow will end up in the region of 300kg/cow.

It’s hard to say for definite just yet, but most of the silage required for winter feed is in the pit or in round bales in the yard. The winter feed budget has been created with enough silage to last into mid-April next year.

Last year, the farm was only to able to grow about 60% of the winter feed that was required.

There is an average farm grass cover of 746kg this week and 86% of the farm is closed for next spring. That means there is 14% left to graze, but depending on conditions, two paddocks with covers of 1,600kg might be left for the spring.

Grass cover

This might be a high grass cover to carry over on these two paddocks, but considering the first cows are calving at the end of January, it won’t be long coming around and will provide cheap feed next spring.

If they were grazed, the average farm cover would be well below target closing cover. About 70% of the farm was grazed by 5 November, which should provide the platform for February grazing.

There is a cover of between 500kg and 600kg on most of these paddocks at this stage and they have a nice healthy leafy green appearance.

Cows have become tender on their feet for the last two weeks. Farm staff reckon despite the fact roadways are in pretty good shape, the constant wetness is making the cows’ hooves softer and every stone can be felt, so walking into milking is a very slow process now, especially when the herd is walking over 1km to the parlour.

You couldn’t have enough paddock entrances for grazing at this time of the year and in Kilkenny there are only two entrances into all paddocks with a roadway on one side, so you could definitely make an argument for more gateways.

New feed face

Over the last few weeks, a second feed face has been built. The new feed passage runs the length of the stand-off pad on the opposite side to the existing feed face. It means there is now a feed passage on both sides of the pad and headroom to feed up to 300 cows at the one time (150 cows on each side).

The work is not long finished and costing has not yet been finalised, but the cost will come in around €25,000 net of VAT. The new feed face is bigger than the first feed face. The standing area measures 13ft wide compared to 10ft on the first feed passage.

The concrete area in front of the passage where the silage is fed out is also wider at 13ft. The feed passage is scraping straight into the slurry tank. As the soil was disturbed to get the slurry from the new feed face into the tank, that part was plastic-lined and two properly constructed agitation points were also installed.

The net cost of the lining installed will be around €17,000 and the two concrete agitation points will be about €5,000. There will be extra costs for digging and stone.

Farm staff are putting back up the green fencing surrounding the tank this week.

Total milk sold was 1.385m litres to mid-November, so that’s 4,620 litres per cow delivered at about 8.25% solids, which works out at 392kg of milk solids delivered per cow.

In terms of per hectare performance, there were 113ha available for grazing up to August, or 2.65 cows/ha, so performance is around 1,050kg of milk solids per hectare.

Seven hectares of new grass reseeds were available for two grazings in the autumn which has helped extend autumn grazing.

The October milk cheque came in at just over €40,000, or a net milk value of 43.5c/litre and remember about 20% of the annual supply from this farm is in the Glanbia fixed milk price scheme.

The Glanbia base price for October is 29.05c/litre or 30.5 c/litre including VAT and average payout was 38.1c/litre for October.

In milk solids language, the value of a kilo of protein is €6.58 and €2.85 per kilo of fat (2.3 to one) in Glanbia. On average, €4.31/kg of milk solids was the price paid in October to Glanbia suppliers.