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Update from Johnstown Castle April 30th 2018
Aidan said “We’ve had a very tough April in terms of grazing conditions and this has made it a really long winter. We had spells in April where ground was just coming ok, only to get a day of heavy rainfall to set us back to square 1. This was the case again as recently as last night, with 12mm rainfall and cows had to be housed.
Aidan is hopeful that with the good forecast they will get a period of at least 10 days of no rain. Total rainfall for April was 125mm with a monthly average soil temp of 8.7°C.
Growth rates have been inconsistent over the past few weeks. They had super growth in the third week of April, but for the past week are below normal. A combination of very cold nights, some fields saturated and holding water as well as some fields not getting their planned Phosphorus application has contributed to the problem.
Aidan said “alongside this we have grazed covers heavier than we would have liked (~1900), these would be slower recovering as they are white at the base. It will take a bit of work and grazing management to get all swards back producing the quality grass we want. Hopefully we will get a good burst of growth and a chance to clean up a couple of fields by taking out surplus”.
They have most of their silage ground closed and fertilised at this stage and would still be targeting to harvest some 1st cut silage around the 20th May (some silage fields have not been grazed as they were too wet initially).
Spring breeding has started just this week, despite the conditions, activity has been high pre-breeding.
| This week (30/04/18) | Autumn Calving Herd | Spring Calving Herd |
| Production | ||
| % of Herd Milking | 100% | 100% |
| % of Herd Milking | 100% | 100% |
| Milk Kg | 24.2 | 28..3 |
| Fat % | 4.85 | 4.28 |
| Protein % | 3.63 | 3.26 |
| Milk Solids kg | 2.04 | 2.13 |
| Intake | ||
| Grazed Grass kgs/dm/cow (estimate) | 15kgs | 15kgs |
| Silage kgs/dm/cow | ~ 2kgs, only if cows housed after evening grazing (21.00) | ~ 2kgs, only if cows housed after evening grazing (21.00) |
| Maize silage kgs/dm/cow | ||
| Concentrate in TMR –kgs/dm/cow | ||
| Parlour concentrate kgs/dm/cow | 4 | 4 |
| Lactation to date per cow | Mean calving date 11th October | Mean calving date 25th Feb |
| Totals | ||
| Days in Milk | 200 | 64 |
| Milk kg | 5230 | 1708 |
| Milk Solids kg | 418 | 125 |
| Concentrate Fed | 1108 in parlour (1563 in total) | 302 |
Cover Parameters
| Farm Cover (kg DM/ha) | 980.00 | Total LU: | 60.00 |
| Cover / LU (kg DM/LU) | 246.00 | LU / ha: | 3.98 |
| Growth /Ha (kg DM/ha/day) | 42.00 | Grazing area: | 27 (20.61 Ha) |
| Demand /Ha (kg DM/ha/day) | 68.00 | Reseeded: | 0 (0.00 Ha) |
| Demand/day (kg DM/day) | 1020.00 | Silage – cut later: | 8 (5.54 Ha) |
| Days ahead | 14.00 | Silage – cut now: | 0 (0.00 Ha) |
Rotation Length back (Days) 177
With both poor growth rates & grazing conditions this week, we’re holding off on skipping any paddocks/closing extra silage ground, priority is to try keep cows out on grass fulltime without doing damage.
First Published 7 May 2018
Tagged with: Dairy