- Location
- South Molton
Guess the only comparison to make is against if you were to purchase the forage.
Its cost alone is immaterial unless you have a benchmark to compare to.
Silage 2020
- Thread starter Bald Rick
- Start date
Its cost alone is immaterial unless you have a benchmark to compare to.
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
- Location
- South Molton
Oh 100% agree.
Went to a business accounts seminar, presenter asked what was first figure you look at on accounts, youngish lad shouts out profit, it's all about profit!
Ok, anyone else, Net worth I said. Lad looked at me like I was stupid, I said you can make a loss on paper, but increase net worth but lose money and pay tax!
Or indeed make a large profit but your net worth has decreased due to asset sale.
Moral is dont get fixated on one KPI
- Location
- Ceredigion
The Grinch
Member
- Location
- Staffordshire
Sylution
Member
- Location
- Carmarthenshire
?? How do you feel about it. I am happy with cow performance. And we do make 4 cuts of silage, so still multicut really. But tried 5 cuts for 2 years with 4 week intervals after 1st, and milk from forage did not improve was hoping to go from 4000lts to 4500lts, but went down to 3800lts in those years.?
Back to 3 clamp cuts of 6ish week interval and bale the 4th to clear up fields end of September. Cows definately healthier in the winter, which has pushed the milk from forage back up to just over 4000lts. Just my observation. I know what I say makes no sense on paper or with analysis of the silage!!!
The Grinch
Member
- Location
- Staffordshire
We don’t milk now, only keep suckler cows but still do 3 cuts at roughly 6 weeks apart (different climate to wales). When it comes around to mowing I always want to start but dad says leave it another 10 days to which I reply it will be sh1t by then so we end up mowing it only for him to comment on how the cows are scouring in winter. It was the same when we milked. I am envious of all you chaps who mow multicut times and can keep cows healthy. Is it that you have to have a diet feeder or what’s the secret ?
Tomtrac
Member
- Location
- Penrith cumbria
I think it is you spend more money buying straw to dry them up
As up here in south cumbria theres no straw grown just grass grass grass
- Location
- somerset
and for dairy rations, need a bit of scratch factor in the mix, its the same with grazing, ideal grass, cows look for a bit of fibre, difficult to argue with the computer ration, or with what the cows tell you. I think, perhaps we have complicated our dairy cow rations, to the benefit of the feed firms, rather than ours. A friends son, always aiming for high yields, now no longer milking, but working within the industry, has been amazed, at the amounts of milk, achieved on very simple systems/rations, and, if went back in, would never use the 'computer' complicated ideal ration again !
Headless chicken
Member
- Location
- West Wales
monster crops here. Atleast 3wellies high.
- Location
- somerset
size 6 kids measure ?
Headless chicken
Member
- Location
- West Wales
the only way to measure grass
- Location
- Northern Ireland
No diet feeder here. No straw. If I wanted a more fibrous diet, I'd just take three cuts instead of four. There's no handy straw here either. Can't say I've got issues with watery dung. Yes, it can be pretty black at times, especially on 3rd and 4th cut. It's a very different dung to a heavy grain/maize silage/WC wheat/grass silage diet. But I almost always have two cuts open at once, usually to mitigate the negatives of a lesser quality clamp by complimenting it with a better one. We never get a perfect year for making four equal quality cuts. At least one gets delayed and drops in quality, or goes in wetter than it should. I'd like my bf higher, but I'm not prepared to use a diet feeder to push for it.
Farmer_1994
Member
- Location
- Oakbank, Manitoba, Canada
9 hours to mow 230 acres of alfalfa/ryegrass. Looks like it should be 3x as much as 1st cut with the ryegrass filling in where the winter killed alfalfa was. Started rowing up to keep ahead of the chopper tomorrow.
- Location
- Northern Ireland
Serious going. How many mowers? Width?
Farmer_1994
Member
- Location
- Oakbank, Manitoba, Canada
1 set of triple mowers, 30 ft. Half this field is mile long pulls, other half is 1/2 mile pulls. Lots of time spent in crop.
How big is the field?
Farmer_1994
Member
- Location
- Oakbank, Manitoba, Canada
230 acres. All one field
- Location
- Northern Ireland
?. My biggest field is 14.??
Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published
Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer from July will give the sector a clear path forward and boost farm business resilience.
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...