Into the dry
Below: grass that has had dairy effluent on it, grazed about two weeks ago.
Today's grazing, before pm milking. The cows are going in at 2800 kg DM/ha (summer scale, 8 cm), grazing down to 3 - 4 cm and getting a bale of silage daily. There are 95 cows in this group, still on twice a day milking and given 0.93 hectare daily - representing about 11.5 kg DM a cow.Sixty cows are on once a day milking, given 0.6 ha daily and no silage.
Below: tomorrow's ration
The farm has had about 20 mm rain for the whole of January. It's an early dry, following through from an exceptionally dry November and moderate rain in December. We're not so badly off as some - controlled starvation (ie, the current ration) will keep the cows milking for the next fortnight and the silage is of excellent quality. There's a two week delay in getting tanks/troughs for molasses feeding and a rumour of a shortage - all feeds are under pressure right now, between the increased milk price (which makes supplementary feed more economic) and the prolonged and early dry spell. I'm hopeful that molasses will offset the grass shortage somewhat, and that the weather forecasters are as inaccurate as experience suggests they will be (as they've been saying for weeks not to expect much rain before April).
January breaks heat records
dry to continue
posted by nellta holdings @ 1:38 AM
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