Calving is underway on James King’s farm near Ballymena, Co Antrim. There were 24 cows calved down at the end of last week and there should be almost 40 early lactation cows in the herd by the start of next month.

All milking cows are still at grass full-time, although James plans to put all early lactation cows on a winter diet shortly. Stale cows will remain at grass during October, ground conditions permitting.

The much-needed improvement in weather conditions over the past two weeks has allowed a flurry of field work on the King farm.

We were not planning on taking another cut, but there was decent cover and it was too far away to be grazed with cows

Last Wednesday, 50ac of silage ground was mowed down for a fourth cut. It was tedded the day after and was baled on Friday, yielding around three bales per acre.

“It had slurry applied after third-cut, but didn’t get any fertiliser. We were not planning on taking another cut, but there was decent cover and it was too far away to be grazed with cows,” James explained.

The late cut also freed up silage ground for an application of slurry, which has helped free up plenty of slurry storage ahead of housing. There is no issue with fodder stocks on the King farm for the 2020/21 winter period.

Land improvement

James has also been completing land improvement work on a 10ac block, which he recently started renting. The land runs into his main laneway and he will be able to walk the milking herd to it next year.

James has opted for a min-till reseed because the land is relatively stoney. After hedges were cut, the grass was sprayed off, mowed and baled. The land was then harrowed and grass seed went in earlier this week before being rolled.

The seed mix is a silage/grazing mix that contains the intermediate diploid varieties AberWolf and AberZeus, and 40% of the mix is the tetraploid AberGain.

We don’t plan to increase cow numbers with the new ground

Among all Dairylink participants, the King farm has the highest milking platform stocking rate. During the summer months, James can have a stocking rate of over 5.0 livestock units per hectare.

“We don’t plan to increase cow numbers with the new ground. It should help free us up next year to get some reseeding done on our own ground next autumn and get it growing better,” James said.

Dry cows

Dry cow management is currently a key focus for James. There are 60 cows in the group at present and more later-calving cows continue to be dried off each week.

At drying-off, cows get dry cow tubes and sealers, plus a high iodine bolus, a fluke and worm dose and fly repellent pour-on.

Cows are housed for the second half of the eight-week dry period. Analysis of dry cow silage shows a dry matter of 45%, metabolisable energy 9.4 MJ/kg DM, crude protein of 12.1% and a D-value of 59.

Cows in the near group are eating around 10kg DM/head/day of this silage, plus 2kg/head/day of a pre-calver concentrate, which includes a mineral supplement.

Target energy intakes for cows in the run up to calving is 110-120 MJ/head/day and the outlined dry cow diet on the King farm is in line with this.

Weekly round-up

  • Late third-cut and some fourth-cut silage has been completed on Dairylink farms.
  • Calving and calf rearing is continuing on farms that have autumn-calving cows.
  • Reseeding work is being completed on some programme farms.
  • Sires are being selected ahead of the 2020/21 breeding season.
  • Breeding for high-input dairy system

    A free webinar will be broadcast from the Martin family farm in Dromintee, Co Armagh, at the end of the month.

    Dairylink participants James and Owen Martin run a 160-cow herd in a fully housed, all year-round calving system. The pedigree Holstein herd has a rolling annual yield 9,706l at 3.88% butterfat and 3.24% protein from 3.5t of concentrate.

    The upcoming webinar will focus on the breeding strategy on the Martin farm.

    Going forward, James and Owen want to maintain milk yield in the herd, while refining the breeding programme to produce cows with a higher PTA

    Breeding policy for the Martins has been mainly focused on selecting sires to deliver yield.

    Going forward, James and Owen want to maintain milk yield in the herd, while refining the breeding programme to produce cows with a higher PTA for percentage butterfat and protein.

    Other traits that they are interested in are fertility index, type merit and mammary.

    Bulls

    A new bull team is being finalised for the Martin farm and will be discussed during the webinar. Sires are selected from the UK-based Profitable Lifetime Index (PLI) rankings.

    An example of a bull being used on the Martin farm includes Denovo Villanova, with an overall PLI of £758 and sub-indexes of 0.27% butterfat and 0.09% protein.

    The free webinar will be online at www.ifj.ie/dairylink from 8pm on Wednesday 30 September and will be available to watch anytime afterwards.