Every season is different and so farming is always a moving feast of jobs and planning. It never fails to keep me interested and motivated to anticipate the next required moves. With three cuts of silage in the pit, followed by some baleage before it got too dry, I feel reasonably secure against the vagaries […]
So many things have changed in the last six weeks, hence the delay in getting a blog written. The plan was to put another house on the farm for either ourselves or the farm manager. After missing out on a couple we were able to secure a fabulous home. With the best site chosen and […]
Looking out my lounge window this morning I can hardly see the farm for the trees. I am not unhappy about that. Climate change has certainly brought more heat and wind to the farm. The shade has already benefitted the cows, but I do admit that the trees have suffered from the wind. Even the […]
Calving is definitely NOT the busiest time of the year, it’s more the last 20 cows still left to calve who still need dusting and 100% of your attention, that annoying colostrum and penicillin mob you still have to bring to the shed, setting up fences all over the farm, managing pasture, feeding calves outside, […]
It hasn’t been long since the last update but we have just had a farm consultant visit so we thought we would make this available. Calving was slow to start with but is going well – only just over 100 to calve in the spring so we are feeling very relaxed, most of the time. […]
It’s been a long time between updates for us and lots has happened. At the being of 2020 we decided that we would put the farms on the market, so we moved back onto the farm in June 2020 (after having managers for 6 years) to run it ourselves again (with the help of our […]
Before you know it, it’s calving time for us spring calving systems. We finished the 2020/2021 season strongly producing 138,498 kg MS from 65 ha, and achieving our goal of doing over 2,000 kg MS/ha. It took a lot of determination, and a good pay out, to help us get there. We continued to milk […]
With the girls producing just 0.74 kg milksolids I have decided to finish up for the season. Dry off date is the 4th May. So, in the end they didn’t milk much longer than last year, and I only gained a couple of percent in total production. Still, with the pay out well up and […]
With 31 days left till June, we are still milking TAD. With all the supplements we have fed over the summer, the little bits of rain, and sticking to our round length of 45 days since the calves left the farm, we have increased pasture cover to 2,400+ kg DM/ha. If this warm weather continues, […]
In my last blog I was talking about getting a third cut of silage. Well, the weather was good, so I started filling the second pit. I then managed a fourth cut, which I baled as it was off half the saved area. I saved the rest as standing silage and am just grazing the […]