Milk solids
- Thread starter TMKF
- Start date
Not buffering for the whole year. Only on the shoulders and maybe pre and during breeding. But otherwise grass only. I havent seen a nut yet better grass . We all have different systems and output it's what works here .margin and profit . I'm not chasing huge production.
kverneland es 80
Well-Known Member
what sort of clean outs are you getting .,i would see a issue at 28 days unless the weather was very dry and then the higher sugars would compensate for the loss in leaf
I pushed out to a 60day rotation and got on OK, when your in the height of a drought and growing absolutely nothing cleanouts are the last of your worry.
Blackwater boy
Moderator
Your concept of no meal is interesting. Do you think maize and beet is cheaper than meals? Meal can be fed in the parlour but adequate headspace and feeding with a loader or diet feeder is needed with the forages. Do you plan on balancing for protein or plan to leave the grass be the balancer? I’m not saying your wrong I’m just interested as your model is very different from any high or low cost 1 I’ve ever seen or read about
The concept so to speak is grass only and have plenty. What advantage is their with feed if grass is plentyfull. The feed is to make up an intake shortfall.
The idea is to leave a residue. I have no problem grazing paddocks clean .have had cows down to16 days for much of season before but this is a new approach a different way of looking at my grazing platform
Green Grass
Well-Known Member
I am interested in your method as well but you have not yet mentioned your stocking rate ,i think 28 day rotation is a brilliant idea as you will rarely run short on grass but you will get a lot more stem in grass ,so you will have to pre mow and strip graze for most of the grazing season
Stocking rate is cow per acre which currently includes silage ground. Rotation is currently 45--50 days ending first week December. Cleaning out paddocks now so no residue. Not planing on topping . As said it's a change a different point of view which seems to work.
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6600
Well-Known Member
A cow to the acre was always the benchmark and for good reason I think. Higher just makes sense for your suppliers and customers. The is a sweet spot in the middle ground I think.
kverneland es 80
Well-Known Member
that is what i was coming at ,this summer taught me a lot about grass as well and we ran a long rotation as well for a good bit of the summer solids held up as well even tho the grass was stemmy ,my take is that 28 days would work well in a time of soil moisture deficit,as there is a good bit of sugars built in to the stem in those conditions,would be a issue in our normal seasons tho .i wonder how soon the journal will publish our findings
I'd like to follow this model if I could, however I got stung badly in mid May 2017 when I pulled back the meal to less than 1kg/day, that month saw some very strong growth rates with lush grass, the cows dung went extremely watery, cows only peaked about 23l instead of the usual 25/26 and protein was about 0.15/0.2 down on previous summers. Whether I can blame it all on the lack of meal I duno, I made sure to keep up 3kg of meal well into June this summer and thankfully no repeat. Perhaps the grass was too high in nitrogen, and if I had spread less in the spring the grass might not of been as lush, however around here we certainly don't want to sacrifice growth in May, especially when there often is a drought from mid June onwards.
I've had same experience . Thinking it might be sara the dungs bubbled or fizzled if u look closely. I uped my bycarb and droped the meals to a kg or so. This year then altered things and will push it further next season
Blackwater boy
Moderator
Are you growing yourself or buying in the maize and beet?
You obviously have this well taught out. So you plan to feed maize and beet instead of ration, fair enough, how many tonnes/KGms of DM of maize and beet do you plan on having per cow in the yard at the start of the year to get you over the 12 months. What kind of tonnes of grass can you grow?
I’m not having a go just interested as I said above your plan is against the norm and while your cows seem very high solids your ideas go against the low lost grass based blue print and throw in a few kgs of meal when things are tight and when cows calf and physically cannot get enough of energy from forage. Tell us more please
It's work in progress. Planing on 10 acres of beet and maybe 30 maize but not too pushed am more concerned with setting up for grazing. I know I'm going in the opposite direction to the norm and buffering cows is not the objective . It's the alternative to buying in . But milk from grass is key but the grazing approach is different and I'm learning as I go myself.
If we regularly get a summer like this yr I'll be growing simular, grass silage was a disaster full stop.
Mf240
Well-Known Member
Yes that's correct.
6600
Well-Known Member
That's the answer I was looking for
Paw
Well-Known Member
Quick google search, all the links on the first page have 1.03. One gives a range of 1.026-1.034