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On the left cows stand during milking while on the right is a view up the batch crush where over 300 animals were blood tested for Johne's in two and half hours last week.
The Greenfield herd was scanned recently and the result shows that 12% are not in-calf. It’s not the best result the farm has had over the years and it means over 40 cows will leave the farm not in-calf. The plan is that this subset of cows will walk off the farm in the next week or two to help reduce stocking rate and extend what grass is left on the farm for as long as possible.
The Greenfield herd was scanned recently and the result shows that 12% are not in-calf. It’s not the best result the farm has had over the years and it means over 40 cows will leave the farm not in-calf.
The plan is that this subset of cows will walk off the farm in the next week or two to help reduce stocking rate and extend what grass is left on the farm for as long as possible.
The farm management team was hoping for less than 10% not in-calf over the 13-week breeding season, so there is some disappointment.
The other disappointment was that six maiden heifers (7%) from 87 submitted didn’t go in-calf. Remember that AI was used on all cows, there were no stock bulls, and last year no April-calvers were sold – they were all retained in the herd. Selling April-calvers can help submission rates and subsequent fertility results.
A dissapointing aspect
One aspect of the results that was disappointing is that 17 first-calvers didn’t go back in-calf.
While over 90 heifers joined the herd, the fact that almost 20% of them didn’t go back in-calf is a big cost to the system.
They were managed the same as other years and farm management are adamant they were not under pressure at breeding on condition score or feed. We will look a little closer at this.
The August milk cheque arrived with the Glanbia market top-up that was announced recently to be paid retrospectively on all milk supplied between January and June 2017.
For Kilkenny, the top-up was worth €8,660 (€25/cow) on top of the €69,800 milk cheque.
Effectively, it was 1c/l on over 900,000l. The net milk value worked out at 42.98c/l.
The manufacturing price at the moment is 42.4c/l
About 23% of the annual farm supply is in fixed milk price schemes, which range in price from 35c/l to 38c/l.
The manufacturing price at the moment is 42.4c/l, so it is beating the fixed schemes well. In August, 162,360l was delivered, down from 180,000 delivered in July – a 9.8% drop in supply (2.5%/week).
The farm is running about 7% ahead of last year in terms of volume supplied. In terms of milk solids, the average fat was 4.83%, with average protein 3.98%. The Glanbia group average was 4.10% fat and 3.58% protein. The Glanbia group average price was €4.93/kg MS.
Growth rate lifted to 60kg per day this week bringing farm cover to over 1,100kg across the farm. Ten days ago the herd started getting 4kg of meal so that will be stopped as grass supply is back on target.
The concrete work was finished on Tuesday and the galvanised steel uprights for hanging the cubicles are all now in place.
Cow flow
When I called to the farm this week, I met farm manager Eoin and he was describing to me how he has implemented some of the thinking New Zealand vet Neil Chesterson explained on his recent visit to Ireland.
In the past, the cows came into the circular yard and the backing gate was used immediately to tighten up the herd. Now, Eoin said: “We bring the cows in and then go for a cup of coffee. The cows sort themselves out in the yard and line up for the parlour. We milk three rows (90 cows) and then I touch the button for the backing gate for maybe 20 seconds.”
So the backing gate is used sparingly and the milker always stays in the pit. In the evening as soon as the first cow slots into position at the top of the row clusters are applied – there is no waiting for the full row of cows to fill up (see video).
Eoin said, “You need patience for a few weeks to allow the cows adapt to their own way but less forcing on the way into the parlour and, in the parlour, means more comfortable cows and operators.”
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