I am currently having the best season on farm to date, with everything going to plan so far. Before the government’s rules, regulations and restrictions kick in we have decided to go ALL IN for production results and have a farm target of 2,000 kg MS/ha. We are fully pushing the farm, cows, and us to the limit. It has been a personal goal of mine, and what better season (weather-wise and payout) to do it in. By the 31st December over 1,100 kg MS/ha will be achieved, leaving us with 900 kg MS/ha to chase in the second half of the season.
The cows are currently holding at 2 kg MS/cow, and I am feeding them 7 kg of pelletised meal. 8 ha silage will be cut on the 20th December, this leaves me on a 26 day round. After the silage is cut I will extend the round to 30 days.
I had hoped to get the 43 calves off to grazing before Christmas, but unfortunately I can’t send them off till early February. Managing a high stocking rate over summer will be crucial and I will be using feed budgets each month. Thankfully, I have over 70 ha of stack silage that we have made on farm. So hopefully with the meal and homemade silage we can get through whatever this summer brings us (hopefully it is not as bad as last season!!!!).
All of the bulls (10) left the farm on the 18th December and 4 culls went to the works on the 14th December which means less mouths to feed.
The staff roster has been finalised giving us all a break over Christmas, New Year and in January. The farm is set up for the second half of the season – with all of that ticked off I say BRING ON SUMMER!
Wishing everyone in the SMASH family a great (fingers crossed) rainy Christmas and best wishes for 2021!