A team of Jersey bulls were delivered on farm this week, in advance of breeding, with the plan to use these with carry-over cows and for mopping up after the six weeks of AI has concluded. Due to the low payout, all forms of intervention like drugs to help fertility were cut from the farm budget, with cows only metrichecked and treated if necessary.

Cows not observed to be cycling were run in a separate herd with teams of bulls. The results were relatively successful compared to the use of intervention in previous years. It had the desired effect of reducing farm working expenses (10% empty rate in previous season with intervention, 13% empty with no intervention last season).

After 22 days of pre-breeding recording, 65% of the herd has been observed cycling, with the hope that this will be a lot higher come next Thursday, our start date for AI. With the payout forecast to be higher this year, management will consider some levels of intervention, but will delay deciding for another week.

Calves weighed

All calves were weighed last Tuesday, with weights ranging from 65-95kg, with the oldest being 11 weeks. All calves are currently on four litres of milk, 16% crude protein ration ad lib and fresh grass every second day. Weaning target is 100kg live weight – we will weigh weekly from now on and wean groups of calves as they achieve this weight.

With 17mm of rain falling on Wednesday, it provided a welcome lift to soil moisture levels, while also allowing us turn off the pivot irrigator for a few days. As grass dry matter took a hit in these wet conditions along with cows being very unsettled, we increased supplement levels from 1kg of barley/day to 3kg/day for Wednesday and Thursday to prevent any setbacks to cow condition. With breeding start date only a week away at this stage, we felt it was important to maintain their plane of nutrition while also trying to hold production levels.

Reseeding

Milking platform stocking rate is currently 4LU/ha, with ground taken out of the rotation due to calves and paddocks being reseeded. AFC is currently 650kg/DM/ha, with growth rates of 72kg/DM/day recorded from this week’s walk. Growth rates remain above normal for this time of year due to more rainfall than normal in the Canterbury region, with moisture typically being a limiting factor to growth from this point on.

In the shed, production has evidently passed peak with cows slipping back to 2.12kg/MS/day (25.5 litres, 4.56% fat, 3.73% protein). We’ve currently no cows on milk withdrawal, with SCC back down to 65,000 cells/ml.

Having had the opportunity to visit some farms in the Canterbury region over the last few days, it’s been a huge learning curve to see the variations in systems used on different farms. From one large-scale unit, which was matching stocking rate to peak grass growth and happy to supplement with up to 1t of feed per cow, to a smaller scale unit choosing a contrasting approach of matching grass growth to demand by using bag nitrogen as a supplement rather than an input, the variety between profitable systems out here is quite impressive.

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