Cake Price Tracker

[farmideas]

Thanks so much for getting back to me, and the chat. It's difficult to keep up. On Fri I was writing my intro in Direct Driller and needed to quote the price of fertiliser, again in general terms, and wrote 'around £300' and then the radio tells me it's over £500! There's every reason to make certain none is wasted.

 

[Jdunn55]

Wait for @Jdunn55 to come along & tell you what he’s paying (or at least was paying at one point)

£402 rings a bell
That will be changing next month though to a more grazing cake. Probably something along the lines of maize and soya hulls/pke, and a touch of soya/rape to bring protein up slightly to 14%. Will still be aiming for 13%me minimum but fibre over 9%

Edit:
From may I'll hopefully have the oopf up and running so will change the parlour feed over to 2/3 wheat and 1/3 palm kernel and then stick a 16% maize based cake in the oopf

Diet Will then be the following:
0-32 litres:
- 4kg wheat max
- 2kg palm kernel max
- 2kgdm haylege (10 cp and 9me 60%dm)
-13kgdm grazing
Should make a diet running at over 17% cp and 250ish mj (leaves 70mj for maintenance and at 5.5mj/litre gives 32 litres)

32-50 litres:
- 4kg wheat
- 2kg pke
- 7kg max maize based 16% cake
- 2kgdm haylege
- 10kg grazing
Leaving the diet at 17%cp and 47 litres at 5mj/litre (will be lower constituents so less energy/litre)

 

[In the pit]

£402 rings a bell
That will be changing next month though to a more grazing cake. Probably something along the lines of maize and soya hulls/pke, and a touch of soya/rape to bring protein up slightly to 14%. Will still be aiming for 13%me minimum but fibre over 9%

Edit:
From may I'll hopefully have the oopf up and running so will change the parlour feed over to 2/3 wheat and 1/3 palm kernel and then stick a 16% maize based cake in the oopf

Diet Will then be the following:
0-32 litres:
- 4kg wheat max
- 2kg palm kernel max
- 2kgdm haylege (10 cp and 9me 60%dm)
-13kgdm grazing
Should make a diet running at over 17% cp and 250ish mj (leaves 70mj for maintenance and at 5.5mj/litre gives 32 litres)

32-50 litres:
- 4kg wheat
- 2kg pke
- 7kg max maize based 16% cake
- 2kgdm haylege
- 10kg grazing
Leaving the diet at 17%cp and 47 litres at 5mj/litre (will be lower constituents so less energy/litre)

Sounds like hard work
Grass and cake in parlour much easier

 

[Wesley]

Sounds like hard work
Grass and cake in parlour much easier

Oopf is hardly hard work. Unless the cows knock a part off & dump all the cake on the floor in true @Jdunn55 fashion

 

[sidjon]

Our blend has gone from £368 to £310 over last 3 weeks for summer 15% blend on contract, no PKE, no hulls, am still thinking 3kg cracked maize will be what I'm thinking currently.

 

[DairyNerd]

I don’t buy any cake, only straights and mix myself.
Rape cake is 318£/ton in full 36 ton loads right now. Got a price yesterday. After august about 295 right now.

So over 300 for a 16% cake sounds like a lot?

You are probably right, I think the feed mills are probably reducing there prices slower than they could do in a lot of cases, they have a captive market really like it or not.

I never really know whether we should just go 'floor sweepings' or slightly higher spec; I started a thread about feeding wheat gluten a while back.

 

[In the pit]

Oopf is hardly hard work. Unless the cows knock a part off & dump all the cake on the floor in true @Jdunn55 fashion

But when there in the oopf they could be grazing unless there mobile , so standing on a yard filling there selves up with haylage/cake makes igrazing a lot more awkward not to mention more time on concrete

 

[Jdunn55]

Sounds like hard work
Grass and cake in parlour much easier

Sounds harder work than it actually is

Cow calves, she gets 3kg in the parlour (which in theory should be 2kg wheat and 1kg palm kernal)

5 days later (when she goes in the tank) that goes up to 4.5kg
10-14 days later (change cake amounts weeklyish) it goes up to 6kg

Then monitor, if in a week/2 weeks time she's doing 35 litres, she gets her number tapped into the oopf and given 2kg of cake, she gets shoved into the stall so she knows where to go and she's sorted

Then in another week or two if she's doing 40 litres she gets another 2kg in the oopf
And so forth until a maximum of 7-8kg

 

[Jdunn55]

But when there in the oopf they could be grazing unless there mobile , so standing on a yard filling there selves up with haylage/cake makes igrazing a lot more awkward not to mention more time on concrete

Mine can hoover down 7-8kg of concentrates in no time at all, on the way out to grazing isn't a problem
I've got 4 stalls available which means I can afford to have about 4/10 of my herd going through the oopf

Edit
They would be having the haylege after morning milking whilst I finish Milking/washing down etc before I walk them out across the road so they would be standing doing nothing regardless
Rather they eat a couple of kg of fibre to help with butterfat and slow down grass going through them

 

[Wesley]

But when there in the oopf they could be grazing unless there mobile , so standing on a yard filling there selves up with haylage/cake makes igrazing a lot more awkward not to mention more time on concrete

Everyones situation is different. One size doesn’t always fit all.

 

[Jdunn55]

Everyones situation is different. One size doesn’t always fit all.

I have two types of cows here
I have grazing friesians and I have high yielding friesians and holsteins

It's pointless trying to get the grazers up to 50l, they'll never do it

If I don't feed the high yielders correctly they'll die

I either have 2 separate herds and feed accordingly or else have 1 herd and find a way to feed them differently - oopf allow me to do that

 

[DairyNerd]

Everyones situation is different. One size doesn’t always fit all.

Yes and i think @Jdunn55 doesn't use a diet feeder so if you are pushing for yield a bit like he does then that volume of concentrates through the parlour is a fair slug so i can see the logic in his case.

 

[DairyNerd]

But when there in the oopf they could be grazing unless there mobile , so standing on a yard filling there selves up with haylage/cake makes igrazing a lot more awkward not to mention more time on concrete

I am not a great fan of OOPF's in general but in fairness 10kgDM for his bigger cows is not a lot over two grazings, if he allocates correctly and is tighter with allocation after the hayledge feed then should be fine.

 

[In the pit]

I am not a great fan of OOPF's in general but in fairness 10kgDM for his bigger cows is not a lot over two grazings, if he allocates correctly and is tighter with allocation after the hayledge feed then should be fine.

Only way to graze properly is to send cows out hungry ,lot of research for spring calvers saying that if there in at night out by day there silage should run out at 10pm
If you start cutting back allocation of grass they’ll just start eating more haylage and the figure isn’t 1kg haylage means 1 kg less grass it’s more 2/3 kgs less grass

 

[In the pit]

Everyones situation is different. One size doesn’t always fit all.

Never said it was
But in theory oopf are great but in practice a waste of time
Only discussing this this morning with parlour engineer
Bully cow into oopf eats her cake comes out and hangs round,next cow goes in cake drops then bully cow puts her head underneath cow in oopf and lifts her up making cow back out,bully cow steps in and has another gut full of cake and so on
So farmer locks bully cow out the way and within a few days another bully cow steps up and takes her place

 

[Beef farmer]

You'll be surely on 24t artic drops for that price?

Spot or contract?

Looking at options for summer and winter...

27 ton blown
Bought a few ton

Do you mind me asking who from? Do you just ask for the cheapest 16% cake?

No, was a long drawn out affair to arrive at that price.

 

[som farmer]

I am not a great fan of OOPF's in general but in fairness 10kgDM for his bigger cows is not a lot over two grazings, if he allocates correctly and is tighter with allocation after the hayledge feed then should be fine.

oop are easier than feeding them midday, then again at 10pm, in troughs, between milkings, to get more cake into them, in 4 feeds, rather than 2 big hits in the parlour.

things we used to do, TMR seemed easy after that, never used oop's, bought some, and was offered a good profit on them, not sure if that was a right, or wrong move.

When l started milking, they were rationed on the HE, hay equivalent, system, went modern, with the SE, starch equivalent system. Then onto ME, that's altered a bit as well.

8/10 yrs ago, out of interest, compared our 'modern' ration, to the old SE system, they were not that far apart.
Fed a lot of hay over the last few yrs, been surprised how the cows performed on it, so perhaps even that old HE system, wasn't so bad !

Had a cake rep, interested in high yielders, he reckoned to feed hay and straights ! Having said that, used to feed hay, and a measure of soaked s/beet, in front of the cows, when we used to tie them up, quite pleased when we went straw yards, and self feed silage.

 

[Wesley]

Never said it was
But in theory oopf are great but in practice a waste of time
Only discussing this this morning with parlour engineer
Bully cow into oopf eats her cake comes out and hangs round,next cow goes in cake drops then bully cow puts her head underneath cow in oopf and lifts her up making cow back out,bully cow steps in and has another gut full of cake and so on
So farmer locks bully cow out the way and within a few days another bully cow steps up and takes her place

Depending on how new/what system it runs on but you can set the drop rate on some so that situation doesn’t really occur. There should never be much in the trough if its set to the rate they can eat.

 

[Serup]

You are probably right, I think the feed mills are probably reducing there prices slower than they could do in a lot of cases, they have a captive market really like it or not.

I never really know whether we should just go 'floor sweepings' or slightly higher spec; I started a thread about feeding wheat gluten a while back.

I don’t like the add-on the mills put on, and many won’t make a locked blend, only say feed value and then mix whatever they can get cheapest.
I mix rape meal, rape cake, rolled wheat, maizegluten60, bergafat and minerals. I do tmr, so i don’t want or need any pills. I mix this 2 times per week and mix with grass silage, maize silage, beet pulp, caustic wheat and chopped straw. I feed morning and evening (and milk 3 times also )
They are out on grass in the summer, but i feed them the same.

 

[DairyNerd]

Only way to graze properly is to send cows out hungry ,lot of research for spring calvers saying that if there in at night out by day there silage should run out at 10pm
If you start cutting back allocation of grass they’ll just start eating more haylage and the figure isn’t 1kg haylage means 1 kg less grass it’s more 2/3 kgs less grass

Totally agree with all of that, we always run our cows out with an edge to appetite, but we are only looking for 5000L of high solids milk off mainly grass and I think you are similar. It is a different system to the one @Jdunn55 is running, I guess his thinking is the hayledge will slow the rumen down a bit as 4kg wheat, 7kg maize based cake and 10kg lush spring grass is pretty fizzy. Hitting residuals will definitely be a challenge but it always is with a higher yielding cow for the reasons you say, it will still reduce his feed cost to get that grass in the diet.