- Location
- Northern Ireland
The third calvers in a 10k herd are doing 11-13k.
Right before they die.
?
Right before they die.
?
High yielding dry cow diet?????
- Thread starter Blue.
- Start date
jimmer
Member
- Location
- East Devon
Twins, hay dry cow diet, no minerals, cleansed and firing on all 3 nicely
stablegirl
Member
- Location
- North
We are doing 11,000 litres biggest 305 day yields are 17,000 litres.
Transitioning these cows is very hard work, we have jumped in yield from about 9,000 2 years ago and what worked then doesn't work as well now.
Straw processing is very important and we found rotagrinding a big step forward. Out diet is very similar to yours and we add water to help intakes too.
How prevalent are DA's and milk fever? At the sort of yield level your talking about i dont believe your going to manage 2500 calvings without a twist.
Transitioning these cows is very hard work, we have jumped in yield from about 9,000 2 years ago and what worked then doesn't work as well now.
Straw processing is very important and we found rotagrinding a big step forward. Out diet is very similar to yours and we add water to help intakes too.
How prevalent are DA's and milk fever? At the sort of yield level your talking about i dont believe your going to manage 2500 calvings without a twist.
Milkcow365
Member
- Location
- Sw Scotland
What does you dry cow diet look like on paper?
- Location
- somerset
at our yearly meeting with our accountants, who are a large ag accounting firm, he told us that, his firm had very few high imput, high output herds that made a profit in the last year, is he right ?
Barmyfarmer
Member
Probably trying to make you feel good about yourself/ your farm system, i think alot of people tell you what they think you want to hear
stablegirl
Member
- Location
- North
That's a discussion for another thread but I'll just say I'm happy doing what I do.
8.5 Grass
16 maize
3.75 chopped straw
7 water
1.5 soya
0.8 soya hulls
150g bespoke Dc minerals
150g mag chloride
Im 90% happy with it.
More to life
Member
- Location
- Somerset
Just a thought for you, a diet containing high straw and mag chloride will be less palatable with the addition of water.
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
What's the dm of the forages ? 7l water seems alot to me, we have straw, haylage as our forages and don't add water.
Cuthbert
Member
You might be right, could be an intake issue
Monty
Member
- Location
- Nantwich, Cheshire
Best thing we did for DA's was to take the angle grinder and welder to our old crush and make the right hand side bars removable, so the vet can operate easily. Since then due to sod's law we've not had to use it again
I also add water in my dry cow mix. Without it they sort the straw right out and there is no reason to add it.
I add water to a DM level of less than 40% in the mix. If not, they sort it.
Right now we add about 7 liters to hit 39%.
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
We just chuck a hesston in the mix little or no sorting, we've used rotaground straw but I honestly can't see a massive difference other than another bill and a dusty farm
If i don't add straw, my dry cows eat their ration in hours. I add straw until they take at least 20 hours to eat what i want them to.
If i add straw, no matter if it's just mixed in the mixer or pre-chopped, they sort it if i don't add water and we just push the straw out again the next morning. I have a teagle dualschop we use to make straw for mixing.
It’s something I just can’t get right,I absolutely hate calving due to complications afterwards.
Currently feeding 5kilo of chopped straw with the rest made up of the milk cow ration,dry cow minerals and 150g of mag chloride.
Averaging just over 10k litres with a third of the herd in 1st lactation.
Any suggestions?
Tia Eulb ....
Hi, quite a few interesting and sensible recommendations on here from simplicity and silage made on lower slurry applied fields....
I'm a dairy farmer and independent nutritionist from the farm consultancy group chippenham office. The key issue is energy, it sounds like too much energy before the close ration, leading to poorer intakes once calved, however without knowing all the facts its difficult to deduce. I'd say you need to know the Dry Matter of all forages, the structure of your dry mix (including straw processing), the minerals of forages (and what your current dry mineral contains). Mag chloride/DCAB diets are ok but very time consuming to monitor with constant adjustments if done properly, I tend to use alternatives which are more cost effective and practical on farm. Remember each farm is different and what works for one rarely works for another. Soil mineral profiles vary and can have significant effects.
Milkcow365
Member
- Location
- Sw Scotland
3kg soya?
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
[emoji383] man [emoji23]
ollie989898
Member
How much are dry cow rolls and how much do yoy feed per head?