Autumn bonus for Greenfield Farm

Glanbia Co-op operates a scheme where if you supply 3% of your annual milk supply in the month of November you get a bonus of 4 cent/litre for milk supplied in November. This would equate close to €3,000 for the Kilkenny farm. However, the cost might outweigh the benefit.

Heavy rains, cold winds and wet grass are just starting to take effect on the herd – young cows are starting to lose condition score. The strip wire is up and grass is allocated for each grazing and the young cows will be the first to feel the pinch. Minding the condition score of first-calving cows for next spring is more important than trying to achieve a November milk price bonus. The herd was condition scored last week and averaged 2.75 BCS but a couple of difficult grazing days at this time of the year can very quickly peel fat from cows.

Some farmers might consider feeding meals but grass supply on the farm is too heavy and quota is limiting to consider this at the moment. The objective for grazing right now is to clean off the last 25% of paddocks to be grazed.

grazing conditions

In fairness grazing conditions are not bad – there is no paddock damage except for gateways getting a little mucky. Yes on very wet days some grass is mucked up from cows walking around and subsequently some paddocks are not cleaned off as you would wish compared to if it was dry.

September rains really boosted growth rates for the last number of weeks in Kilkenny. Remember four weeks ago grass growth was less than 30kg per day and farm cover was 700kg with milkers being fed silage and meal as drought had reduced grass growth to average less than 30kg in September. Instead of a target farm cover of 1,100kg in mid September, the farm had a cover of 700kg DM/ha.

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When rains arrived in early October growth took off and averaged almost 50 kg/day until last week when it dropped down to 17kg/day across the farm.

This October growth really set the farm up and has reduced the amount of purchased feed required this autumn. The decision was taken in late September to reduce the amount of stock on the farm to lower the stocking rate and allow whatever growth arrived for milking cows into October and November.

Cow sales

First to go were the 30 cows scanned not in calf (10% empty) and a group of cull cows all of which made between €400 to €650 each. More recently 24 cows scanned in calf were sold for €1,000 each. The stock reduction was possible as over 90 in-calf heifers are coming into the herd next February. At current annual grass growth rates and quota limitations, 300 odd cows milking is close to where the farm needs to be, so because fertility was excellent it was a case of sell cows or in-calf heifers. A decision was taken to sell the cows rather than heifers if it was possible to attain a reasonable price, and that is what happened.

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It means there are 218 cows milking this week (all in-calf). The last three-day collection was 10,500 litres at 9.95% solids. It works out at 1.0 kg of milk solids per cow. Lactose was 4.48% last weekend but has dropped less than 4.2% early this week so more heifers will have to be dried off.

Last week 22 cows that were milking less than 10 litres, high SCC and thin cows calving before early February were dried off. Michael estimates cost of dry cow tube (Cepravin) and sealer (Boviseal) will be €12 per cow, which used to be closer to €10/cow two years ago. Not all dry cow tubes have been bought yet as Michael is awaiting sensitivity results.

This week another batch of cows finishing their first lactation and calving next February will be dried off. A ‘drying off’ plan based on calving dates, lactation number and recent condition score is stuck up on the office wall. All cows will be dried off in early December.

The other factor that will influence November supply is the fact quota is filling up fast. Like all other farms, this farm is limited by quota until 2015.

Current estimates suggest there are about 200,000 litres of fat adjusted milk litres left to fill for the spring and last year the farm supplied 33,000 litres in February and 180,000 litres in March. The bulk tank holds about 20,000 litres, so that is available to carry over milk also on the last day of March next year if required.

So feeding meals now trying to achieve a late lactation bonus could cost on the double as you have to pay for the meal, potentially not graze paddocks out as well and you could end up paying a super levy fine. Do your sums carefully.

So far this year the farm has delivered 1.4m litres of milk (162,000 litres above 2012 supply to end of October) or 120,000kg of milk solids. Meal fed is close to 620kg per cow and about two bales of silage per cow milked were fed during the mini droughts. The last bulk cell count (SCC) was 221,000 down from 274,000 the previous collection. This time last year it was 357,000 cells/ml.

Grass supply

Average farm cover was 940kg last week (430kg/cow) and is down to 830kg this week (395kg/cow). Growth rate was 17kg/day last week and dropped to 15kg this week. Up until 25 October, growth rate was almost 50kg per day, exceeding the herd demand (30kg/day), and allowing the farm fill up with grass.

The herd are going into covers of less than 2,500 so quality is excellent and they are grazing it down to 3.5cm. On average, cows were drinking 30 litres per day up until end of October, but it’s down to 10 litres per cow per day for the last number of weeks.

There are still six paddocks with a cover over 1,500kg which will be grazed off over coming weeks. It will mean farm cover might be slightly below target closing cover but carrying one of these heavy paddocks of grass over the winter for grazing next February would not be advised. Regrowths on the 70% of the farm that is closed for next spring are adequate but not exceptional. The plan for the next week is to graze about 8ha per week as per the autumn grazing plan.

Winter Feed

As explained in previous articles, adequate winter feed has been ensiled. The farm has about 220 bales of silage purchased, 200 bales of hay and then the pit has 100 tons of homemade grass silage and over 100 tons of Wholecrop wheat.

If more feed is required next spring further feed will be purchased so it will be monitored on an ongoing basis for the next couple of months.

The most recent update suggests the farm will have a cash surplus of €90,000 this year. This is after paying for all costs and paying down close to €80,000 of debt (Cap & Int) to the bank. At the start of the year the budget suggested the farm would have €10,000 cash left. Obviously milk price and stock sales have been higher than planned and hence the higher cash surplus. Costs have actually increased by €100,000 from the January budget.

As discussed previously, about 10% of cows were scanned not in calf (30/300) after 12 weeks of breeding using AI and no stock bulls. Start date for breeding was 24 April and a CIDR was used on only a very small number of cows. Cows that were not served up to Friday 7 June were scanned. A

fter scanning, 11 cows were treated (five got CIDRs, five were injected with estrumate and one was washed out). AI finished on 19 July.

Manager

Farm Manager Michael Long (pictured below) is leaving the farm at the end of the year after four years of excellent service to the farm to pursue his own career in dairy farming. Second in command Tom Lyng will step up and assume the Farm Managerial position in January and an assistant farm manager will be recruited in coming weeks.