We're hitting 5.5 and 4.1 currently and should hopefully hit 6 and 4.5 by mid October, do milk through a bit and BF hit 7% for the few litres We're sending into January, just need the right type of cows. There on grass only plus 4kg of rolled maize and hulls
Solids contract: calving pattern, total solids
- Thread starter DairyNerd
- Start date
We're hitting 5.5 and 4.1 currently and should hopefully hit 6 and 4.5 by mid October, do milk through a bit and BF hit 7% for the few litres We're sending into January, just need the right type of cows. There on grass only plus 4kg of rolled maize and hulls
Got Irish Freisian cross Jersey with a few pure Jersey's, picked for high solids, low cell count. I agree that i don't see the point chasing seasonality, it (was) the solids on Spring calving i was concerned about but that doesn't appear to be a problem!
lazy farmer
Member
- Location
- som/dor border
Would barbers not take you on? Seasonality much less severe.
No idea, was just happy to get a solids contract at the time to be honest. Could look into it though, thanks.
Dead Rabbits
Member
- Location
- 'Merica
Go visit Jim. I traveled a lot further than 5 miles, worth the trip!
Grassman247
Member
Spring and autumn here
620kgs milk solids from 1.4T of cake
Both herds on seperate farms so very easy to compare against each other.
Spring herd 2ppl more profitable than the autumns every time. Even if we got penalised they’d still blow the autumns out the water. Reason we autumn calve is milking 310 cows from a 60ha grazing block on a sandstone farm can be difficult to manage
Quality for both farms 4.5 fat and 3.5pro
620kgs milk solids from 1.4T of cake
Both herds on seperate farms so very easy to compare against each other.
Spring herd 2ppl more profitable than the autumns every time. Even if we got penalised they’d still blow the autumns out the water. Reason we autumn calve is milking 310 cows from a 60ha grazing block on a sandstone farm can be difficult to manage
Quality for both farms 4.5 fat and 3.5pro
You do well there, we would be a similar stocking rate, I guess you never stop feeding buffer?
Grassman247
Member
Go out later than the springs to really big covers as cows heading for drying off anyway so not pushing the yield, can nearly get away without buffering but years like this we feed silage in the field to them
Holsteinfriesian90
Member
- Location
- Cornwall
What sort of breeding on the autumn unit?
Grassman247
Member
Started out in 98 with British friesians, there’s Ayrshire, nz friesian, jersey more British Frisian, Norwegian red and a touch of Holstein
Where are you based ? When you feed silage outside how do you do that ? Without wasting some
- Location
- somerset
there are loads of possible breeds/x's out there. Deep down, l think x'ing is wrong, previous generations spent centuries evolving x's into pure breeds, because that was the correct thing to do.
We have, xbreds, and x breed, because the pure breeds, in many cases, don't supply what we need. The 1st x jer/hol, is a seriously good cow, but we find subsequent x's not so reliable.
I think that's where we make a mistake, is we should be choosing breeds to x with, that were developed from a similar climate to ours. I was told, a limo x here, requires 2% more energy, to grow, than from their original area, simply down to climate.
Breeds do seem to be climatically diverse, now, and when l tried Normandes, from a very similar climate, not successful.
We have, xbreds, and x breed, because the pure breeds, in many cases, don't supply what we need. The 1st x jer/hol, is a seriously good cow, but we find subsequent x's not so reliable.
I think that's where we make a mistake, is we should be choosing breeds to x with, that were developed from a similar climate to ours. I was told, a limo x here, requires 2% more energy, to grow, than from their original area, simply down to climate.
Breeds do seem to be climatically diverse, now, and when l tried Normandes, from a very similar climate, not successful.