Can you believe that some places are selling for Christmas already – some days I’m sure it still feels like winter!! It is great to see some sunshine, but alas this is amongst some very heavy downpours of rain and so the wet continues to be a real challenge. Our manager has done really well to get through such a lot of rubbish weather in good shape with both the farm and cows doing well – bring on the better weather!
Because it has been soooooooo wet we did decide to put ammo on with a chopper, as there was no way we could get onto the paddocks and since then we have been able to get some paddocks sprayed out for maize so things are looking up.
On the farm
There are currently 353 cows on farm – all grazing 3 ha/day (24 – 25 day round). Our production to date is 37,910 kg MS, compared with 39,690 kg MS at the same time last year. Our current production is 8.7 – 8.8 kg MS/ha/day and 1.8 – 1.9 kg MS/cow/day. The cows’ body condition score is 4.3 and the average pasture cover is 2,545 kg DM/ha.
Feed
We have decided to replace the molasses with P8 (whey) to go with the feed mix being fed in the shed, will keep you posted as to how this goes ☺.
Mating
AB is due to start on 23 – 25th October and will go for 8 weeks – finishing by 20th December.
The first prostaglandin (PG) shot for the heifers was done on 16th August and the second on 30th August, with AB from 30th August – 5th September, 103 heifers were mated. Then AB was done again from 19 – 25th September and 40(ish) were mated. After this 4 Hereford bulls went in with the heifers from 5th – 18th September and again after 25th September.
Crops and new pasture
There has been much discussion about the crops and pasture to be sown this season. After the disappointment of the calves’ poor progress on the straight chicory paddocks (this could also be attributed to the terrible weather conditions etc), the decision has been to mix the chicory into the paddock grass mix this time – as we have in the past.
With many of our paddocks damaged because of all the flooding, we have a fair few to put into annuals, another 7 paddocks for turnips (the aim will be to get the turnips sown by 10 – 20th October) and then the rest of the paddocks will go into permanent pasture over the next month, probably Trojan or One50 at 20 kg/ha, 2 kg/ha each of two clovers, and 3 kg/ha of Puna II chicory.
Run off
Frostie has also been using every bit of fine (and not so fine) weather to get out and continue developing the runoff block. Getting rid of more trees that are past their use-by date and re-fencing paddocks. This is now taking a back seat for a couple of weeks while we are back in the shed to give our wonderful managers time off.