Balmesh silage video 2022.

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Just seen on YouTube balmesh has a video taken this week absolutely nothing on the fields, what a waste of fuel. Look it up.
Can’t believe he’s still going I was watching him 10+ years ago 😂 and I see his videos are still very plain lol… I mean chopping the crop doesn’t look a waste of diesel if it was ready and starting too head or they needed the ground clearing for planting maize… but I think tedding it out was a waste of fuel lol
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
A lot of grass has been cut the last 10 days down here, few farms of 1000+ acres each cut that do 5/6 cuts a year have got to go, it’s so dry now to that when it does rain the grass will grow, currently grass is stalling so a reset is needed and when doing multiple cuts quality is worth way more than quantity
 
A lot of grass has been cut the last 10 days down here, few farms of 1000+ acres each cut that do 5/6 cuts a year have got to go, it’s so dry now to that when it does rain the grass will grow, currently grass is stalling so a reset is needed and when doing multiple cuts quality is worth way more than quantity
This!!
I did mine today,there was more there 2 weeks ago
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
If it wasn’t for one of my staff on holiday until Wednesday I would be wilting today. I’ll keep an eye on the weather forecast and if there’s another week of dry weather I may wilt on Monday but if rain is forecast I’ll leave it and hope it doesn’t turn wet for a month.
Don’t intend to do three cuts this year with its associated extra cost but I do want good quality silage as well. It’s all about compromise.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Is it worth doing 5 or 6 cuts with costs as they are?
Some small number of herds are housed all year round. Some herds are just too large to be sent out to graze. These are usually ‘storage fed’ which means that all their forage is conserved and uniform in quality. No waste from soiled grazing and no cows standing in the freezing rain and not eating or cudding.
Their choice. They can generally achieve very high stocking rates and milk yields although the nutters amongst us and the public are trying to demonise this for their own peculiar and sometimes nefarious reasons. There is certainly an issue with complying with NVZ’s with this system unless the farm also has a substantial arable area.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Unless the farm is very intensive with the fields not too far away, the benefit to cost ratio has become very much more marginal or even unfavourable unless the price of milk rises at least as much as to cover the increased costs. This cannot be taken for granted.
Making a few simple assumptions, for every million litres...

a 1ppl difference in milk price = +/- £10,000
+/- £20 concentrate cost = +/- £7000
+/- 50,000 litres production @ 40p = +/- £20,000

The increased milk income must be very carefully measured against the increased contractor costs of doing maybe 30% extra acres consisting of five cuts compared to three higher yielding cuts. For grazing animals the area and yield per acre of each cut declines as the season progresses of course and the later cuts may, in an average year, be more prone to drought.

Concentrate cost has already reached £400/ton which is a rise of £110/ton since Winter contracts. That’s already over £38,000 per million litres increased costs for many farms and by next Winter I expect another £100/ton on the cost which will add, on average, another £35,000 per million litres to make a total of well over £70,000 in increased costs from bought feed alone per million litres next Winter.
A 4ppl increase in milk price by October from the current price will add £40k to income to offset £35k in feed cost assuming £500/ton which hardly leaves enough to cover all the other increased costs such as energy and contractors and labour and so on.
 
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Unless the farm is very intensive with the fields not too far away, the benefit to cost ratio has become very much more marginal or even unfavourable unless the price of milk rises at least as much as to cover the increased costs.
Making a few simple assumptions, for every million litres...

a 1ppl difference in milk price = +/- £10,000
+/- £20 concentrate cost = +/- £7000
+/- 50,000 litres production @ 40p = +/- £20,000

The increased milk income must be very carefully measured against the increased contractor costs of doing maybe 30% extra acres consisting of five cuts compared to three higher yielding cuts. For grazing animals the area and yield per acre of each cut declines as the season progresses of course and the later cuts may, in an average year, be more prone to drought.
This is where a wagon by the hour excels over a forager by the acre👍
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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