Ian Ratcliffe celebrates new handling system
Six months in and two left to calve – it certainly has been an eventful summer.
We’ve calved all our animals outside, which is testament to the dry weather and very kind October we have had. The herd is split into two groups with half grazing night and day and the other in full time on full TMR.
The housed group are averaging a credible 33 litres at a feed rate of 0.33kg/litre, but the lows which are made up of mainly the Irish heifers we calved-in during July/August are only producing 20 litres at 0.20kg/litre.
So the question is which is more profitable? The margin over costs of the highs is £2 a cow a day more than the lows, yet the highs have higher overheads due to bedding and scraping. The lows are lower input with a fence being moved twice a day and a buffer being fed before afternoon milking.
One major difference is the lows have nearly all been served and show excellent signs of heat with every inch of the tail paint rubbed off. The highs have been slower to come bulling but, as there are a lot of August-September calvers, it is early days.
We have served 110 animals after two weeks, but that does include animals that have been served twice as I have been a bit too eager and served some too early. The handling system is proving a fantastic addition with the segregation gate only missing cows due to operator error. The management race we have is working well and we managed to vet check 100 animals in 100 minutes with minimal stress, which was fantastic.
Seventy-five acres of maize were clamped in favourable conditions two weeks ago. The yields were good and preliminary analysis looks promising. I debated whether to put some wheat in this year instead of maize as it is a versatile crop, but with the consistent yields and quality, maize wins every time.