Most of the country got some rain yesterday. As expected, the parts that got the most rain were the least affected by the drought, although it was all wanted.

With little or no rain in the forecast for the next 10 days, the drought is going to linger on. The long-awaited post-drought burst in growth won’t materialise now until mid- to late August at the earliest.

Try to stay positive by avoiding negative people

Farms are tough places at the moment, with grass scarce on many farms and winter feed scarce too. That’s the reality of the situation. We can’t change the weather, only work with what we have. Try to stay positive by avoiding negative people. It might sound silly, but some people are always negative and if you listen to them too much, you will be negative too.

Serious situation

That’s not to take away from the seriousness of the situation. Some farms are more affected than others. Those that are at risk of not having at least half their winter feed requirement need to strongly consider culling cows.

Talking to people from New Zealand, the key thing is to ensure that the problems of now don’t lead to another problem in the next season, ie by not having enough winter feed.

There’s no shame in reducing cow numbers. In most cases, it’s a great opportunity to improve the calibre of the herd for next season. But for this to happen, the right cows need to be culled.

Empty cows

Empty cows are an obvious choice. Most farmers don’t know their empty cows yet. Final scans should only be conducted 30 days after the last service or when the bulls left the herd. Cows that are empty at 30 days won’t be in-calf later, but it can happen that in-calf cows at 30 days are empty at 60 days so keep this in mind.

Culling poor-performing cows is another option. Use milk recording data to find this out. It’s hard to know if a first-calver is a poor performer because she is a heifer or because she is just poor. First-calvers don’t eat as much as mature cows either, so culling them won’t have as big an impact on reducing demand as you might think.

When looking to cull cows, fat and protein percentage is a good starting point. Getting rid of low-protein and low-fat-percentage cows will increase the levels in the bulk tank.

Drying off first-lactation and low-yielding cows will be a good option where these cows can be taken to where there is more grass available, such as outblocks.

Once a day

Going on to once a day is a decision to reduce feed demand when there is not enough supplement available to fully feed the herd. Once-a-day milking reduces the energy demand of the herd. In studies, it was found that six weeks of once-a-day milking reduces milk solids production by 20%.

I think it’s important that farmers shift their mindset from production per cow towards money in and money out for the rest of the year. This is not the year to be looking to break milk production records. It will cost more to do this on farms badly hit by drought than the income from producing the milk, whether that milk comes now or next October.

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