All things Dairy

Jdunn55

Member
Our wintered grass always looks a bit yellow and oldish in March. But honestly by early May when we cut it looks good. Most of our silage ground is let to rest from 4th cut around Mid September to 1st cut. Slurry after christmas and fert on in Mid March. Did have sheep for years, however the fields were bare in spring and took ages to grow, and with wet winters were always waterlogged. Our soil structure now is much better, worms galore.

View attachment 935292

Here is the 1st cut analysis. Cut 8th may. Not your 12me rocket fuel, but does our cows well. And always more milk than 2nd cut somehow, even if cut again in 30 days ish. 💁‍♂️🙆‍♂️
Always been told 1st cut is the best cut
 
Location
West Wales
Been back in past 2 days. Hoping wind will pickup tomorrow and they’ll be back out Friday. Would have managed to be out yesterday and tomorrow if we’d sorted our fences to the fields were ploughing in the spring and got our troughs set up. It’s so wet here atm the water is just running straight off and not soaking in
Our wintered grass always looks a bit yellow and oldish in March. But honestly by early May when we cut it looks good. Most of our silage ground is let to rest from 4th cut around Mid September to 1st cut. Slurry after christmas and fert on in Mid March. Did have sheep for years, however the fields were bare in spring and took ages to grow, and with wet winters were always waterlogged. Our soil structure now is much better, worms galore.

View attachment 935292

Here is the 1st cut analysis. Cut 8th may. Not your 12me rocket fuel, but does our cows well. And always more milk than 2nd cut somehow, even if cut again in 30 days ish. 💁‍♂️🙆‍♂️
if I can consistently make it over 11 I’m happy. I’ve never had a 12me feed as well as it’s analysed so looks like we should be pretty safe to crack on like normal.
 

Conrod96

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Co. Antrim
What’s the need to have it grazed off our cattle would all be in by the start of November and the ground sees no sheep, cut on the 1st week of may and it makes great silage! Haven’t bothered with sheep for years now as the place isn’t fenced for them 😂
 

Full of bull(s)

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Yorkshire
We have to have sheep on otherwise a wet spring and may soon turns into June and I'm making woody suckler silage :banghead:
A friend of mine farms on heavy clay, kicked winter sheep into touch 5 years ago, now tops his excess grass in winter, says every year his land is getting better to work when he reseeds, and takes machinery better in a wet silage time due to better drainage
 
A friend of mine farms on heavy clay, kicked winter sheep into touch 5 years ago, now tops his excess grass in winter, says every year his land is getting better to work when he reseeds, and takes machinery better in a wet silage time due to better drainage
Interesting,I have always thought it's daft the construction industry use a sheep's foot compactor to do exactly what it says on the tin, and we then use sheep all winter to paddle the ground
 

Joeblue

Member
Came out to a down cow this morning. Not sure what has happened to her but she is a bit battered, bruised and hurt her leg. She is now in a straw pen and eating. Nothing worse than a down cow, it really gets to me.

View attachment 934929
Give her a shot of meta cam every 3 days if she has a hurt it will kill the pain.. is she long calved,? If not a bottle of calcium and magnesium won't be any harm.
 
Been back in past 2 days. Hoping wind will pickup tomorrow and they’ll be back out Friday. Would have managed to be out yesterday and tomorrow if we’d sorted our fences to the fields were ploughing in the spring and got our troughs set up. It’s so wet here atm the water is just running straight off and not soaking in


Does it affect your milk much on of grazing the autumn cows?
 
Location
West Wales
Does it affect your milk much on of grazing the autumn cows?

it swings up and down a bit but seemingly to no ill effect. Ie it goes up when we go out. I try and balance it a little with what pits We’ve got open to account for grass or no grass. They’re not taking in a huge amount of grass very roughly 1.6-2kg of Dm going off what I adjust it down by on the wagon. But less sawdust,silage and wear on machinery. Probably get more into them this week looking at weather we should have a decent enough run to start “proper grazing”
 

Ducati899

Member
Location
north dorset
The difference between Cornwall & Northumberland ! - with snow forcast for tonight
Don`t think our little hedge plants will suffer from drought stress any time soon :(

Don’t worry..... it’s not all dry down south
 

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vantage

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembs
Looks good 👍
Thanks. Taken 20 years since we got planning, so have had enough time to try and get it right!
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what pump are you putting in?
Hopefully this will do the job, changed my mind about a peristaltic pump as the feed to it could have blocked with silage, as it was only 32mm, also it was a lot of money £3k, a bigger pump was an eye watering cost!
 

early riser

Member
Location
Up North
Thanks. Taken 20 years since we got planning, so have had enough time to try and get it right!View attachment 935463

Hopefully this will do the job, changed my mind about a peristaltic pump as the feed to it could have blocked with silage, as it was only 32mm, also it was a lot of money £3k, a bigger pump was an eye watering cost!

am I correct in thinking that you’re bedding on sand? Be interesting to hear how you get on with it, most of the specialist sand slurry pumps and mixers (e.g. GEA Houle or Landia) are over £20k
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

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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