Quite the interesting season thus far isn’t it? Saturated soils and NIWA telling us we have had a mild dry winter. Well, I can tell you from here in Te Poi 10mm over night might have well been 100 as we were on the knife-edge in terms of resorting to OAD until it dried out a bit, and I’m sure those around us weren’t far away from the same decision. You might be quite surprised to know that Te Poi grass growth rates and soil temps are very similar to Tokoroa’s, can you believe it? Thankfully we follow the Spring Rotation Planner and monitor our pasture growth rates and soil temps and have come out the other side with feed ahead of us (a small buffer). We have closed down the maize stack and have a handful of bales left for the calves on farm during the summer.
Overall, it was a great calving, with another French student (doing an ag degree) as our regular calf rearer so most days went smoothly. But with the saturated soils and pasture utilisation pretty poor we did have to feed out twice a day for a time. The hard work has paid off and the cows were just last week condition scored at a 4.5 and the same for the 2 and 3 year olds. I wonder after this ‘dry’ winter if we should start calving on the 15th July with a balance date of 15-19th September, especially when our soil temperatures bottom out in mid-August at between 6.8 and 8 degrees with growth rates in the mid teens. What we can change plays on my mind when planning – shifting it back a few days is warranted I feel.
Despite having a very poor replacement calf rate (27% from 242 straws used during mating) we scraped to the mid 60s and purchased another 13 from a reliable source. Another conversation starter during milking rehashing plans…. how we can improve or is there any need to go deeper into the lower percentage of the herd to get our replacements, surely it can’t happen twice?!
The calves are all outside, dehorned and vaccinated, and with the warm days they are certainly enjoying this bright spell. Our soil tests are completed and we are fully gearing up for the next phase on the farm, being mating season, with some pretty cool help from something I have been working on for the last 6 months, I’ve called it Perfect Cow Breeding Solutions, you can find it on Facebook.
We have also added bolus technology to the farm, SmaXtec, to aid us in heat detection and health/mastitis prevention and detection. So far it is proving its worth, heat detection is working well and the health component has already paid for itself along with the rumination indicators.
We are having some interesting conversations during milking about the merits of the different farming systems within NZ and how this can aid farmers in the future. So that about wraps it up, I know all too well how difficult and frustrating this part of the season can be, hopefully the end is in sight for you all.