Vet costs.

[happycows]

I like the idea of calving outside. Reality is i could be out there 2 in the morning in the hissing rain, searching for a cow that i thought might be calving or running around like a twit trying too get her in on my own with half a calf flapping out the back end. That really is not much fun.
Peaky one eye on the i pad beside the bed and see everything that's going on and if interventions needed calving hurdle, jack, ropes, lube is all too hand in a well lit shed. Makes for a much less stressful time for all.

 

[Headless chicken]

Id give calving outside another go if i was you, keep them real tight and back fence them on standing hay, can you afford to calve inside in aug? There is a poster on this thread doing 13k liters plus calving cows outside...

I suspect calving may be pushed a bit later accordingly but time will tell. I’m working on a new employee who I know is a far better manger of grassland than me so within reason I will be influenced by him a bit.

 

[lazy farmer]

I like the idea of calving outside. Reality is i could be out there 2 in the morning in the hissing rain, searching for a cow that i thought might be calving or running around like a twit trying too get her in on my own with half a calf flapping out the back end. That really is not much fun.
Peaky one eye on the i pad beside the bed and see everything that's going on and if interventions needed calving hurdle, jack, ropes, lube is all too hand in a well lit shed. Makes for a much less stressful time for all.

move the fence on the standing hay late and that won’t happen.

 

[Ducati899]

Finally see someone else that doesn't vaccinate ! You don't do ibr lepto or bvd? I don't, haven't vaccinated anything for about 3 years! I only jag the cows with rotavec at drying off. I just keep an eye out for anything, milking the cows myself I like to think I can spot anything that's going through them and get ontop of it

+1

 

[linga]

shouldn't you be feeding standing hay not good grass ?

Standing hay used to be good grass. It always seems wrong to let good grass go

 

[Beef farmer]

Standing hay used to be good grass. It always seems wrong to let good grass go

Nooooo. Standing hay means you can poach a field and it dosent matter becaise the cows seed it right behind them....our best yielding paddocks this year so far are last seasons calving paddocks

 

[lazy farmer]

Nooooo. Standing hay means you can poach a field and it dosent matter becaise the cows seed it right behind them....our best yielding paddocks this year so far are last seasons calving paddocks

yeap they got a nice bit of extra PK and organic matter in them

 

[The Happy Herdsman]

Standing hay used to be good grass. It always seems wrong to let good grass go

But 'good' grass for milking cows is bad grass for Drys.

 

[Beef farmer]

Last years standing hay. Grazed 20th feb at 3650 grazed 5th april at 2900 grazed tomorrow at 3300.

 

[linga]

But 'good' grass for milking cows is bad grass for Drys.

Yes indeed. I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. I was just saying it feels wrong to grow high quality grass and let it deteriorate.
It feels like ( and I say feels advisedly as the reality might well be different) that we should be growing high quality grass to produce milk from and if we want low quality stuff we should get it elsewhere.
To argue for it on self reseeding grounds is a very fair point and we have done likewise in the past.

 

[Beef farmer]

Yes indeed. I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. I was just saying it feels wrong to grow high quality grass and let it deteriorate.
It feels like ( and I say feels advisedly as the reality might well be different) that we should be growing high quality grass to produce milk from and if we want low quality stuff we should get it elsewhere.
To argue for it on self reseeding grounds is a very fair point and we have done likewise in the past.

What are you going to feed these housed cows?

 

[linga]

What are you going to feed these housed cows?

No idea at the moment to be honest

 

[Headless chicken]

What are you going to feed these housed cows?

This year is the exception but normally an abundance of bales for £10 a bale. We also take on a fair bit of land that hasn’t been farmed or reseeded for years and it’s impossible to pull decent high energy silage from this sort of stuff so use it as part of the rotation and means we don’t have to rush in and plough it up straight Away

 

[BELOWAVERAGE]

1st of Jan 17 to 31 Dec 17, .34ppl, .17 of that was spot on fly repellant used on cows and wormer used on young stock, balance vet and med on cows and calves, it would have been less per litre but held cows off bull 2 years ago to shift calving a bit, which caused 80% of cows to have a long dry period early last year, so annual yield was lower, 18% cull rate which could have been lower as some committed very minor offence's.

 

[The Agrarian]

Do your cows eat standing hay? Ours wouldn't. They pace around for a while and tramp it down, eat the shoots off the hedges, come and stand at the gateway and destroy it, and then eventually break out. And it's ruined for any other purpose.

 

[The Happy Herdsman]

Do your cows eat standing hay? Ours wouldn't. They pace around for a while and tramp it down, eat the shoots off the hedges, come and stand at the gateway and destroy it, and then eventually break out. And it's ruined for any other purpose.

The far off group follow milkers round and have adlib straw so not an issue there. The 3 week prior group get budgeted 2Kg/dm a day plus 3kg/dm of silage and adlib straw. I have found the key is to not move the fence far so they treat it like a feed barrier and don't just lay it flat.

 

[Beef farmer]

Do your cows eat standing hay? Ours wouldn't. They pace around for a while and tramp it down, eat the shoots off the hedges, come and stand at the gateway and destroy it, and then eventually break out. And it's ruined for any other purpose.

Ours take it right down, if they didnt they would starve.

 

[Beef farmer]

Ours deck it from this to this. We dont back fence very tight, so there is plenty of room for cows to return and calve.

 

[Sid]

Ours take it right down, if they didnt they would starve.

Some cows don't know what grass looks like and need "retraining".

 

[The Agrarian]

Like the Danish red.

Not one for letting grass head. Kills out the sward. And if some seed drops and sprouts for next year, then you have a new sward bred from the earlier heading varieties, which is the opposite to what you'd want.