Forums
New posts
Forum list
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New resources
Latest activity
Trending Threads
Resources
Latest reviews
Search resources
FarmTV
Farm Compare
Search
Tokens/Searches
Calendar
Upcoming Events
Members
Registered members
Current visitors
New Resources
New posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Forum list
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Navigation
Install the app
Install
More options
Contact us
Close Menu
Forums
Livestock
Dairy Farming
When to graze grass
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Glosherds" data-source="post: 8128008" data-attributes="member: 62116"><p>I'm on a cheese contract and so solids are important here. It's my first year and definitely balancing quality and quantity of grass and milk is a challenge for me too. </p><p></p><p>Definitely far from getting it right all the time but I aim to go into covers around 3200 and to come out around 1600, we are calving until the end of May (started at the end of March) so I don't push the cows any harder than this at the moment but I think grass quality doesn't really suffer at these residuals, especially if you rotate silage paddocks and use pre-mowing when necessary if rotation length increases for example. Anything over 3200 I will consider pre-mowing as I personally think its is hard to get cows at peak yield to graze to good residuals much over this and regrowth quality would suffer. </p><p></p><p>On the butterfat side:</p><p></p><p>Are you worried about the level from a cow health point of view or is it just that your contract rewards high solids? If just the latter then I would work out at what level it actually matters. For example, if I up my fat by 0.25% I get roughly an extra 1ppl on my price so a cow doing 20L a day gives an extra 20p. If my current price is 40ppl then I would only need to drop by 0.5L per cow for this to cancel out any gain from upping the fat. </p><p></p><p>What cake are you feeding if any? I am feeding a HDF cake, I only feed 1.5kg a day at the moment so its more about not exacerbating the problem I guess.</p><p></p><p>As I say I am far from getting all these things right all the time but hope that helps.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Glosherds, post: 8128008, member: 62116"] I'm on a cheese contract and so solids are important here. It's my first year and definitely balancing quality and quantity of grass and milk is a challenge for me too. Definitely far from getting it right all the time but I aim to go into covers around 3200 and to come out around 1600, we are calving until the end of May (started at the end of March) so I don't push the cows any harder than this at the moment but I think grass quality doesn't really suffer at these residuals, especially if you rotate silage paddocks and use pre-mowing when necessary if rotation length increases for example. Anything over 3200 I will consider pre-mowing as I personally think its is hard to get cows at peak yield to graze to good residuals much over this and regrowth quality would suffer. On the butterfat side: Are you worried about the level from a cow health point of view or is it just that your contract rewards high solids? If just the latter then I would work out at what level it actually matters. For example, if I up my fat by 0.25% I get roughly an extra 1ppl on my price so a cow doing 20L a day gives an extra 20p. If my current price is 40ppl then I would only need to drop by 0.5L per cow for this to cancel out any gain from upping the fat. What cake are you feeding if any? I am feeding a HDF cake, I only feed 1.5kg a day at the moment so its more about not exacerbating the problem I guess. As I say I am far from getting all these things right all the time but hope that helps. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Livestock
Dairy Farming
When to graze grass
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Accept
Learn more…
Top