All things Dairy

i'll calve 2-3 heifers a year at 21 months once there big enough there served regardless of age.

My criteria for service is animals that are alive on May 10th.

When we were building the herd we would have been calving into May and keeping the offspring to breed the following year but now all replacements are born in the first 3 weeks
 
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Rossymons

Member
Location
Cornwall
i'll calve 2-3 heifers a year at 21 months once there big enough there served regardless of age.

There's a lot to be said for that. What I'm doing now compared to the crap job I did of growing my own heifers has been pretty eye opening.

General consensus is that if they're in good condition, looking well and bulling strong then serve them - age and size don't matter.
 

More to life

Member
Location
Somerset
There's a lot to be said for that. What I'm doing now compared to the crap job I did of growing my own heifers has been pretty eye opening.

General consensus is that if they're in good condition, looking well and bulling strong then serve them - age and size don't matter.
I think it's pretty cool to get a second calf out of a 2yr old.
 
Location
East Mids
Same here, we use plenty of sexed semen and have all replacements born in the first 3 weeks.
Yup, 3-4 weeks for us. Since we tightened that up, of course, unless you change your system then by default you are breeding to calve at 2 years. When we had replacements born over 12 weeks we could calve some at 22 months if they were large enough to serve, but now if we do that we will be bringing the calving period forward which we do not want. So our average age at first calving has gone up from about 713 days to 735.
 

crashbox

Member
Livestock Farmer
What are people's experiences with applying well rotted manure to grazing platform during the season?

Got a low potash field here (1+ to 2-), thought a light flick of very black stuff might give it a boost and add organics...

But will it bugger up the grass?

Extending rotation out to 30 days there as dry as a chip already...
 

In the pit

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Pembrokeshire
What are people's experiences with applying well rotted manure to grazing platform during the season?

Got a low potash field here (1+ to 2-), thought a light flick of very black stuff might give it a boost and add organics...

But will it bugger up the grass?

Extending rotation out to 30 days there as dry as a chip already...
I’ve always done it through July /aug and covered as much of the grazing area as possible
Biggest thing is getting the right bloke on the spreader
 
9F683411-077C-4E62-B7DF-B1A84B42CE62.jpeg

20 days to the start of service
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

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  • 50-75%

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  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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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