New milking parlour

Tippcon said:
It's a hypothetical question, I don't own 0.45 acres :laugh:
I'm just curious, there are a lot of farms of around 40-50 acres and I'd say dairying is the only mainstream enterprise that would turn a decent profit on that acreage depending of course on the start-up costs. If the 45 acres was your grazing platform would you carry 45 cows? or 60? or 20? I wouldn't have a clue, they used to talk about an acre per cow.
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Very rarely does anyone I know break the 2.5lu/ha over the whole lot. Those that do would be buying A LOT of feed in!

But stocking rates on Grazing Platform vary hugely. Some have all their land as GP so would be 2.5. Whereas mine would be 5+
 
Tippcon said:
It's a hypothetical question, I don't own 0.45 acres :laugh:
I'm just curious, there are a lot of farms of around 40-50 acres and I'd say dairying is the only mainstream enterprise that would turn a decent profit on that acreage depending of course on the start-up costs. If the 45 acres was your grazing platform would you carry 45 cows? or 60? or 20? I wouldn't have a clue, they used to talk about an acre per cow.
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I've a 38.5 acre gp that Im milking 65 cows on this year. The farm was chopped up with a motorway years ago. Silage and youngstock rearing is on outfarms and the full farm sr is 2.6 and i hope to feed around 600kg of meal this year. I have a 14 acre block of land that I can walk cows to down the road but I'd prefer not to do it out of respect for the neighbours. At the end of the day it all depends on how much grass you can grow and so far so good.
 
scottie said:
I've a 38.5 acre gp that Im milking 65 cows on this year. The farm was chopped up with a motorway years ago. Silage and youngstock rearing is on outfarms and the full farm sr is 2.6 and i hope to feed around 600kg of meal this year. I have a 14 acre block of land that I can walk cows to down the road but I'd prefer not to do it out of respect for the neighbours. At the end of the day it all depends on how much grass you can grow and so far so good.
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That's fair going
 
TMKF said:
Very rarely does anyone I know break the 2.5lu/ha over the whole lot. Those that do would be buying A LOT of feed in!

But stocking rates on Grazing Platform vary hugely. Some have all their land as GP so would be 2.5. Whereas mine would be 5+
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Stocked at 2.7overall this year (only a milking block) , last year we spent about 2.2c/l on buying in maize and silage (although we do have around 200tons of silage left over!). Ideally I'd rent another 30acres locally for silage and heifers but nothing at all around, and I wouldn't value it at more than 100e/acre rent given the current milk prices. Buying in feed works well here, yes it helps that demand for silage is low enough locally I know, and I'll also certainly strongly consider culling heavy at the back end to reduce my winter demand (and take pressure off housing which is equally as important). But in general overall stocking up around 3cows/ha would certainly be the target once lime, p&k and reseeds all sorted. The frequency of these wet springs and summer droughts will be the only potential spanner in the works.
 
Just a up date went to look at a rapid exit parlour yesterday got to milk in it and all. 36 units was some sight seeing all the stall work lift up and the cows walk straight out. Had meters and cluster wash and auto I D 304 cows in less then 1.5 hours was impressed now
Great set up all in 1 shed with drafting facilities. AI crush aswell. Was hard this morning to come back down to earth I tell you
 
padraig barron said:
Just a up date went to look at a rapid exit parlour yesterday got to milk in it and all. 36 units was some sight seeing all the stall work lift up and the cows walk straight out. Had meters and cluster wash and auto I D 304 cows in less then 1.5 hours was impressed now
Great set up all in 1 shed with drafting facilities. AI crush aswell. Was hard this morning to come back down to earth I tell you
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Was it in Kilkenny?... Went to a similar one at least in Kilkenny very impressive set up. I don't know was it the cows weren't settled in the parlour, the crowds around putting them off or just fools standing in the way but I'd say things are running smoother now. Only problem I'd have is the size of the area needing to be washed down unless you were recycling dirty water the water use would be massive otherwise.
 
Ya it was alrite. A very well set up yard. I would have it any day. Cows were grand now even when i was in the pit. Ya I would agree with you there I'd like to see another way to manage cow walking area. Small tractor and scraper or something. Think I would have a channel covered with a slat and push muck into it. Other then that you would be emptying the dirty water tank every second day
 
padraig barron said:
Ya it was alrite. A very well set up yard. I would have it any day. Cows were grand now even when i was in the pit. Ya I would agree with you there I'd like to see another way to manage cow walking area. Small tractor and scraper or something. Think I would have a channel covered with a slat and push muck into it. Other then that you would be emptying the dirty water tank every second day
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Ya cow flow is excellent in it to be fair, I can't remember if there is a step down onto the walking area in that parlour but it's a neat feature it encourages the cows to keep moving as they don't like standing with they're back legs higher.
Yep, slatted channels would be my preference too, I thought the little channels made with angle and 4" wavin were a disaster. There's a 4" pipe out of the pit here and it causes enough trouble never mind trying to wash dry dung through the 2" gap. I wondered would a flushing system work well there, let the washings settle for a few hours pump it into an overground tank and just let flow back out by gravity, then give it a run of clean water with the wash down hose. There's enough work & expense with dirty water with storing/spreading without generating more of it!
 
Ya there is a step alrite works a treat. We asked would he not have it flush and you cud wash that area from the pit but then they told us the reason. Ya but it's the amount of water you use. Do u mean the water u use to solely wash the parlour reuse that again? Hard to beat a scraper I think
 
Does the meal troughs and feeders cost a lot more for the rapid exit parlours .local lad with rapid exit but no feeders has to feed cows in yard which is a balls.I cant figure out how he trains in heifers without feeding them
 
Green Grass said:
Does the meal troughs and feeders cost a lot more for the rapid exit parlours .local lad with rapid exit but no feeders has to feed cows in yard which is a balls.I cant figure out how he trains in heifers without feeding them
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Dairymaster are one of only a couple to offer feeders with a rapid exit.

Was it @Tullyvernon who was looking at out of parlour feeders rather than in parlour feeding
 
Green Grass said:
Does the meal troughs and feeders cost a lot more for the rapid exit parlours .local lad with rapid exit but no feeders has to feed cows in yard which is a balls.I cant figure out how he trains in heifers without feeding them
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Plenty of people milk without feeders, giving feed to train heifers can train them to kick more
 
padraig barron said:
I must go on line and see can I find that article in the journal. Well look it won't stay like this for ever and wot we are milking in at present is making the job very difficult. I could put a drafting gate in at the mo but Iam still caught on space at present cows are on lanes and everything. Land wise Iam good we are tilling abit so that will come into things. Ya the dairymaster lads were saying to go for the grant on the machine only and not the shed. Cost could be anything for 3,-8k per unit
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The five parlours are on the farmers journal YouTube channel, so you can see them in action.
 
No just water from the dirty water tank in general, you'd have a serious plant to have enough volume from dairy washings! The tank here has slurry going into it and when spreading it has to be stirred every hour at least or its seperates out into solids and dirty water. It'd be very easy have a sump in the tank and drop a submersible dirty water pump into it, on a timer to come on a few hours after milking
There was a piece in one of the 'Irish dairy farmers on a set up similar to the type I'm on about if I can find it I'll take a picture of the piece.
Yard here takes 20-25minutes to do by hand...Plenty a time to think of a few ways to beat it! Hyd automatic scrapers aren't much better between hoses, seals and chipped rods, only scraping I ever enjoyed was on a skidsteer!
 
Green Grass said:
Does the meal troughs and feeders cost a lot more for the rapid exit parlours .local lad with rapid exit but no feeders has to feed cows in yard which is a balls.I cant figure out how he trains in heifers without feeding them
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Don't have parlour feeder here, the trick with heifers is to get them good and tight and tie them up if necessary. I trained 25 this year and Id say I had to tie 5 for a few days till they relaxed, also I don't own a kickbar.
Walking them through the parlour before they calf really helps too.
 
Ya we run heifers true the parlour in batches of 4 cos we are winter milking it's handy to, the cows show them who is boss quick enuf if you ever noticed they'd have heifers sorted for ya in no time. If they don't go in the parlour the 1st day we just leave them alone the next day they are in. We usually spray them give them a rub up high on the leg after a week job done cut tails and in with the next batch. No feeding in parlour either.
 
denis086 said:
No just water from the dirty water tank in general, you'd have a serious plant to have enough volume from dairy washings! The tank here has slurry going into it and when spreading it has to be stirred every hour at least or its seperates out into solids and dirty water. It'd be very easy have a sump in the tank and drop a submersible dirty water pump into it, on a timer to come on a few hours after milking
There was a piece in one of the 'Irish dairy farmers on a set up similar to the type I'm on about if I can find it I'll take a picture of the piece.
Yard here takes 20-25minutes to do by hand...Plenty a time to think of a few ways to beat it! Hyd automatic scrapers aren't much better between hoses, seals and chipped rods, only scraping I ever enjoyed was on a skidsteer!
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Was just thinking today wat bout rain water harvesting still a pain aving to spread it to I sopose. I know it's not the most enjoyable job scraping but if you had a massey 35 and just have her welded to a scraper you'd have the place done in minutes and would only have to do it once a day realy
 
scottie said:
I've a 38.5 acre gp that Im milking 65 cows on this year. The farm was chopped up with a motorway years ago. Silage and youngstock rearing is on outfarms and the full farm sr is 2.6 and i hope to feed around 600kg of meal this year. I have a 14 acre block of land that I can walk cows to down the road but I'd prefer not to do it out of respect for the neighbours. At the end of the day it all depends on how much grass you can grow and so far so good.
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How do you manage in spring and autumn when growth is slow?
 
farmerjack said:
How do you manage in spring and autumn when growth is slow?
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Meal and bales.. this year had to use pit (72dmd) as i ran out of bales early on. Tbh its tough going and with the spring we just had i have fed an aweful lot of meal. I was thinking of feeding beet next year.
 
scottie said:
Meal and bales.. this year had to use pit (72dmd) as i ran out of bales early on. Tbh its tough going and with the spring we just had i have fed an aweful lot of meal. I was thinking of feeding beet next year.
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I'm aiming for 150/200 nice leafy 80dmd excess paddock bales off the milking block here this year, which would feed the milkers whole way through the winter and hopefully up till late March, assuming we don't get a huge drought and loads need to get fed out this summer ha. But with the low price of grain at the minute likes of soyahulls/pke can easily be bought in for the likes of 15c/kgDM, and if your in an area with a decent bit of excess silage for sale you'll buy in silage for the likes of 12c/kgDM. It gives me the confidence to keep pushing on up the SR around here, assuming the price of milk doesn't stay crap lol.

Any idea on how much washed beet can be bought in at? Ideally c/kgDM!
 
Tim818 said:
I'm aiming for 150/200 nice leafy 80dmd excess paddock bales off the milking block here this year, which would feed the milkers whole way through the winter and hopefully up till late March, assuming we don't get a huge drought and loads need to get fed out this summer ha. But with the low price of grain at the minute likes of soyahulls/pke can easily be bought in for the likes of 15c/kgDM, and if your in an area with a decent bit of excess silage for sale you'll buy in silage for the likes of 12c/kgDM. It gives me the confidence to keep pushing on up the SR around here, assuming the price of milk doesn't stay crap lol.

Any idea on how much washed beet can be bought in at? Ideally c/kgDM!
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Agree tim, I think i should be making 3 bales per cow at 80plus dmd. One and a half for the autumn and one and a half for the spring. Going knocking 25 acres tomorrow of strong paddocks to stuff that has being grazed twice, with another 25 acres for the pit on Wed.
I'm also considering picking up dry cow silage elsewhere and using my own land for growing quality stuff. Fibre is easily bought while quality is hard got.

Filler meals are cheap alright but as long as you can keep the price of meal on par with litre of milk I think you doing well. Even a 3 way mix of barley, sh, and distillers grains can be got for 185 collected locally.

Beet is 45 ton I think washed and chopped. I have considered it as I am in a strong enough area for beet but I don't have a way of working it. I have also considered growing it instead of barley next year but it still just a brainwave.
 
kverneland es 80 said:
Fitted one recently. Had an issue with cows pushing up .will take a photo tomorrow
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Thanks in advance for that. I want to put that in but dairymaster say it's either 1 or the other. I've seen a Delaval done this way and was very impressed. Guys trying to push sequenceal bailing for cow control but I was wondering if this way would be as good.
 
padraig barron said:
Thanks in advance for that. I want to put that in but dairymaster say it's either 1 or the other. I've seen a Delaval done this way and was very impressed. Guys trying to push sequenceal bailing for cow control but I was wondering if this way would be as good.
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poor photo but you get the idea
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