Given the poor performance over the last two winters, the woodchip stand-off pad is the first topic to be discussed. We walk out on to the pad and, despite all the rain, it’s like walking on a woodchip spring bed. There is a bounce in the surface and as the cows gather around us you can see the woodchip springing up and down with each step. The favourite cow lying area is now directly behind the concrete feed passage – an area that was just muddy and wet last year. Now it’s clean and dry despite the heavy traffic passing through on the way to the feed face. Stocking rate for most of the winter has been 11m2 per cow and this has been reduced to less than 10m2 per cow since the in-calf heifers arrived back in early January. The high stocking rate only lasted for two weeks because there are now 60 cows calved and calved cows are out grazing.
Given the poor performance over the last two winters, the woodchip stand-off pad is the first topic to be discussed. We walk out on to the pad and, despite all the rain, it’s like walking on a woodchip spring bed. There is a bounce in the surface and as the cows gather around us you can see the woodchip springing up and down with each step. The favourite cow lying area is now directly behind the concrete feed passage – an area that was just muddy and wet last year. Now it’s clean and dry despite the heavy traffic passing through on the way to the feed face.
Stocking rate for most of the winter has been 11m2 per cow and this has been reduced to less than 10m2 per cow since the in-calf heifers arrived back in early January. The high stocking rate only lasted for two weeks because there are now 60 cows calved and calved cows are out grazing.
Michael and Tom are both very happy with how the stand-off pad has performed since the cows came in on the pad in late November. Michael said: “The work carried out over the summer has greatly improved the drainage. Remember, we installed another full set of land drainage pipes in the space between where the existing pipes were installed at the start. The total cost for pipes, labour, and stone was in the region of €10,000.
“While the pad works, it doesn’t get away from the fact it is costing us in the region of €14,000 per year in terms of woodchip. Nevertheless, it’s a very welcome relief to have it working so well.”
Kilkenny recorded as much rain in the last two weeks as most farms, there was 25mm in the jug from Friday night alone. Water was lying in pools and on roadways around the farm but the freshly calved cows still went out because there are a number of very dry fields and the surface is well able to hold up the cows. I feel the low organic matter of the topsoil also helps keep the surface firm.
There are 65 cows calved by Wednesday (yesterday) – mostly in-calf heifers – and Michael is expecting seven or eight cows to calve, on average, per day for the next 30 days.
The thought of calving 200 cows in one month, almost two-thirds of the herd, is a daunting prospect but Michael is clear he’d prefer to do it that way than spend three months calving down the same number of cows. He said: “Yes, there is no doubt it will be busy if you are calving heavily but it means you can dedicate yourself to the job and then focus on managing milking cows after that.” The farm has 116 in-calf heifers this year and over 60 will calve in the first three weeks.
Like a lot of farms, silage is getting tight but, given the fact that 200 cows are due to calve in the next 30 days, it looks like we will get away without buying more forage. Existing silage stocks will be stretched by feeding 2kg or 3kg of meal per cow if required and freshly calved cows will be supplemented with purchased meal rather than poor quality forage.
In general, cows are in good body condition score (3+). Remember, no milk was produced in December so the herd had a good dry period, silage quality was adequate and ensiled dry.
There are 15 to 20 lame cows and these are in a separate group on the pad, some of them are quite thin. Some of these are culls and more are late March calving. The focus for January has been on completing farm costs for 2012 and budgets for 2013. Like many farmers completing profit monitors, the results for 2012 are sobering to say the least. This is despite the fact that it was a relatively good milk price year.
The Kilkenny farm made approximately €20,000 net cash last year after all costs were accounted for. Remember, this is paying for full labour costs, bank repayments of close to €80,000 and land rental charges. Table 1 outlines the summary results in various formats, depending what you include or exclude. Table 2 outlines the itemised costs. Total output was €568,166 with €101,106 from stock sales and €467,000 from milk sales. Total costs amounted to €553,541 as per Table 2.
In Kilkenny, the low net cash position is not unexpected due to the high fixed costs and the herd performance after year three of a start-up herd. Technically, the performance was good – approximately 400kg of milk solids per cow with approximately 300kg of meal fed per cow. Last year we also had some exceptional stock sales boosting output. In our next report from Kilkenny I will discuss planned changes for 2013 in terms of projected costs and performance.
IN BRIEF
Calving is underway with approximately seven to eight cows expected to calve every day for February.The woodchip stand-off pad has improved considerably since the summer drainage work was completed.Silage is tight but purchased meal will fill the gap if required.Technical performance was good and stock sales were exceptionally high but net cash after all costs was approximately €20,125 or 1.5 c/litre. 
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