Jdunn55
Member
- Location
- Helston, cornwall
If you don't want to sell any cows the simplest way is to shave month/months off each year.
From the sounds of it you want everything dry in December and start calving say 10th January?
Don't serve anything between January 1st and March 31st and automatically you won't have any calves between October and December which means over Christmas no calves to feed so will reduce your work load quite quickly
Then every year from there shave another 1-3 months depending on what your comfortable with, either by culling or milking them round
Calve all heifers in during when you want your block to be and from now ONLY serve to dairy semen when you want your block to be (ie if you want to be block calving January-march you want all your heifer replacements born in January and ideally February but certainly no later than march) don't have heifers being born in August because they'll be calving in at the wrong age again or still Ayr
From the sounds of it you want everything dry in December and start calving say 10th January?
Don't serve anything between January 1st and March 31st and automatically you won't have any calves between October and December which means over Christmas no calves to feed so will reduce your work load quite quickly
Then every year from there shave another 1-3 months depending on what your comfortable with, either by culling or milking them round
Calve all heifers in during when you want your block to be and from now ONLY serve to dairy semen when you want your block to be (ie if you want to be block calving January-march you want all your heifer replacements born in January and ideally February but certainly no later than march) don't have heifers being born in August because they'll be calving in at the wrong age again or still Ayr
and by the time the grass quality starts to drop and back into house where the milk normally drops off a fair bit the cows will be reaching the latter end of lactation any way. Have a time of drying off the cows say over a month-6weeks and keep a tighter eye on cows being dried off at correct times instead of again some slipping through resulting in not having a long enough dry period. Get the foot man in and do all dry cows so starting off lactation on mostly cows with no sore feet. Batch drying will suit for any vaccinations that need done as most comes in batch bottles and doesnt suit 1 cow dried this week 2 next week etc. Have a more focused calve rearing time where cleanliness can be kept to a better standard as your not rushing away to work at grass or barley etc. Mabe i come across as a total numpty but these are some of the positives iv been thinking about, certainly theres negatives aswel, but im all ears to others opinions and open to advice as per me starting a thread on here asking about it