Fodder Shortage 2018

I'm down to a months feeding having taught when we closed the pits I had 150% feeding. The beef strike took a huge amount of the spare feeding in Oct/nov/dec :curse:and also had to buy a lot of extra grain
 
How are people finding silage yields and grass covers this year. Cattle are moving fast through grazing here.
 
How are people finding silage yields and grass covers this year. Cattle are moving fast through grazing here.
Way back on silage cuts here, nothing left over for a bit of hay either and meadows making €200 locally. Things are getting a bit hairy now
 
Poor here, both grazing ground and meadows. We're a little under stocked this year but it's working to our advantage. Lots of hay in the shed from last year means we'll make up the difference in sale of fodder hopefully

My father went to draw bales with a neighbour of ours during the week. 11 acres. 157 bales last year, back to 71 this year :scratchhead:
 
Poor here, both grazing ground and meadows. We're a little under stocked this year but it's working to our advantage. Lots of hay in the shed from last year means we'll make up the difference in sale of fodder hopefully

My father went to draw bales with a neighbour of ours during the week. 11 acres. 157 bales last year, back to 71 this year :scratchhead:

In fairness 14 bales to the acre last year was unnatural.

6 bales to the acre at the end of May this year is not a light crop either considering the weather that we have had. I have stuff to bale tomorrow. 9 acres. I'll be happy with 54 bales. It has been cut since yesterday. There was 81 on it last year and it was very heavy but not wilted as well as we would have hoped.
 
I often wonder about these massive bale counts. I sold a few meadows to a man this year, he left it down for 4 days, it got a hard night's rain the evening after it was cut, but it got a lot of warm weather thereafter until baled, he ended up with 7.5 bales to the acre but they were huge bales from what I could see, looked to be a lot of feeding in them. You would see other places where stuff was baled within 12 hours of being cut for instance, particularly in years where the weather was broken and there might be 12 or 13 bales to the acre but the bales wouldn't hold their shape etc afterwards. You would have to assume that there wasn't near as much feeding in those bales and the only man making money was the contractor charging by the bale. Bale counts will be well back this year but surely the quality would be well up on other years. Lot of stuff left over from last year in yards as well.
 
Way back on silage cuts here, nothing left over for a bit of hay either and meadows making €200 locally. Things are getting a bit hairy now

I was lucky enough to be able to buy 20 acres of grass off a neighbour which was a great help as I had to graze some of my own a month ago. The first cut would have been fairly dismal without it. I always run very tight on grass here from mid may to early July.
 
I often wonder about these massive bale counts. I sold a few meadows to a man this year, he left it down for 4 days, it got a hard night's rain the evening after it was cut, but it got a lot of warm weather thereafter until baled, he ended up with 7.5 bales to the acre but they were huge bales from what I could see, looked to be a lot of feeding in them. You would see other places where stuff was baled within 12 hours of being cut for instance, particularly in years where the weather was broken and there might be 12 or 13 bales to the acre but the bales wouldn't hold their shape etc afterwards. You would have to assume that there wasn't near as much feeding in those bales and the only man making money was the contractor charging by the bale. Bale counts will be well back this year but surely the quality would be well up on other years. Lot of stuff left over from last year in yards as well.
The animal is the best judge of both bale quality and the amount that's in a bale.
 
Seems to be pucks of fodder around here. But that could change too.

The winter looks like starting early though. 2 weeks feeding in October will make the winter long. I put in a few yr and a half heifers earlier today . A neighbour housed a good few yesterday , and another fellow housed his heifers on Saturday of last week. He hopes to kill them before Christmas.
 
Dont think there is a massive amount about, most of the second cut will feed out in no time I bet. I wont have the cattle numbers so I should be the finest
 
Huge amount to spare around here, hell of alot of beef lads just made silage or hay instead, came to the point where lads were topping it back into the ground rather than make bales. I panicked during the drought in May/June and bought in 18ac 1st cut, fearing another 2018, instead now
I have enough fodder for 7months, I'd hope to hold over 3 months of that until next winter though.
 
The winter looks like starting early though. 2 weeks feeding in October will make the winter long. I put in a few yr and a half heifers earlier today . A neighbour housed a good few yesterday , and another fellow housed his heifers on Saturday of last week. He hopes to kill them before Christmas.
Its amazing how things differ in such a small country. We lived on the edge all summer. Just not wet enough to have to house cows but not far off-saved by the dry spring. Normally have everything housed by October 15th and often october 1st but at this stage we only have half of them in and should get another week out of it because the lighter stock are out. Can't see fodder being too short in these parts. Less stock in most places. Bales left over from last year in a lot of places. Can buy bales of first cut at 20 euro here still.
 
Second load of bales sold this month delivered this morning, 5 loads sold for November and 2 for December and every man says they’ll want more. February last year before any moved.
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Surprised that theres a want for silage yet tbh, unless they're sub 25e a bale?

We've enough here for 4 months in the 2 pits and have 900 bales on top of that, would have thought most were in the same boat with regards to amount of silage that was made
 
how do you find the cling fiilm under the black cover ? used it on the 2nd cut and was impressed by it
I was hoping it would reduce losses at the sides but a bit disappointed how it turned out, only thing relative to previous years is the silage was very dry going in so would have been harder to compact at the sides, it had for the most of the pit 4 covers and the cling film.
 
I was hoping it would reduce losses at the sides but a bit disappointed how it turned out, only thing relative to previous years is the silage was very dry going in so would have been harder to compact at the sides, it had for the most of the pit 4 covers and the cling film.
was a help on the sides of my pit, just a slab with no walls but i,ll try it on the 1st cut this year and see how it goes
 
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