Farmer Focus: Anxious wait for right second-cut silage conditions
Colin Murdoch © Jeff Holmes Written by our national bard after having spent a day ploughing, To a mouse is a poem that can all too often be relevant to farming.
Like Burns’s often quoted line, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, gang aft agley”, our plans, too, have gone awry, thanks to cold and wet weather after first-cut silage.
See also: Advice on sampling fresh grass for this season’s silage
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Conditions have improved in the past couple of weeks, but summer doesn’t really seem to have arrived yet. I had hoped we’d be ready to cut silage again by now, but I think it needs at least a week yet and hopefully quality won’t suffer.
We’ve maintained a buffer for the cows of 15kg silage and 5kg blend in the morning, followed by 60kg zero-grazed grass in the afternoon.
Now that covers are building, I’m hopeful we can increase grass and cut back on both silage and blend to grow our margin.
Everything seems to be that much more expensive nowadays, but perhaps that’s life and we just need to get used to a new normal.
That said, I certainly got a shock when pricing a new pto shaft for the zero grazer.
There has been a lot of negative press recently regarding Young Farmers.
The original “social network” has always had criticism for the behaviour of certain individuals. However, I firmly believe that this organisation and the opportunities it provides to anyone are second to none.
As a small example, where else can you be cattle dressing one day, go-karting the next and speech making in the evening?
I, for one, have made lifelong friends all over the country while learning skills that will always stand me in good stead.
After my previous article, I really should have put a bet on for a July election – it seems everyone else did.
I’ve never been more undecided than I am this time. I’m struggling to believe that any one of the parties can actually make a difference, not just for agriculture but for the country in general.
All our postie seems to be delivering at the moment is election leaflets with the usual platitudes on them that never come to fruition.
It’s becoming more apparent that politicians have less grip on reality, and are only in it for themselves.