Greenfield update: changing milk liners and increasing growth

Milk liners were changed this week on the Kilkenny farm. It’s the time of the year for milk liners to be changed in many parlours. At this stage, many liners have over 2,000 milkings completed since cows first started calving and milking in February.

Grass growth recovered well this week on the Greenfield farm. Growth rates rose from 64kg to 92kg per day. The result of the higher growth rates was a higher average farm cover, which lifted from 371kg to 519kg DM/ha (100kg/LU to 144kg/LU).

Cows are going into grass covers of about 1,400kg. Grass supply is still on edge at a cover of 140kg/LU, but the sunshine should keep this moving along and back up to a more comfortable 150kg to 160kg/LU for a stocking rate of 3.6 cows/ha.

Fertiliser

Any delay in nitrogen spreading at this time of the year on highly stocked farms can significantly affect the growth rate and volume of grass on the farm. This is especially true if you are taking out surplus grass as round bales to keep grass quality leafy and green.

Cows are milking between 21kg and 22kg per day at just over 8% solids (3.71% protein and 4.39% fat) on grass only. The protein percentage is slightly ahead of last year (3.60%), while the fat is similar to last year. Somatic cell count (SCC) is good at 99,000 cells/ml and TBC is down at 5.

Bulls

Last week, we reported that one of the vasectomised bulls was lame and another one had to be put down. The bull that had to be put down had meningitis symptoms and, in the last week, I’ve talked to a good number of farmers who had a cow or two with similar problems, such as blindness and disorientation, etc. Some of their vets suggested vitamin B deficiency was the cause and unless you spot it very quickly and treat with vitamin B supplement, it’s very hard to cure.

Anyway, it means we have are left with six vasectomised bulls to help identify the cows still coming back in heat. These will have to be looked after carefully to keep them on the go.

Main crop silage was completed during the week and the plastic pulled over. Like many others, this middle of June dry spell is helping clear fields for crops grazed early in the season and stopped for silage in early to mid-April.

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