The main work has been in getting the straw all baled and led in , getting more silage bales made , to make best use of the large quantities of grass we have had , and keeping a close eye on milk production.
Silage stocks seem to be a bit on the lean side this year , and that's a bit of a worry . You never know just what the British winter is going to throw at you , and the silage shortfall could really come and bite us in the Spring .We are now going to start and incorporate big bale silage into the ration in an attempt to slow down the rate of usage in the main silage clamp. hopefully this won't have too much of an impact in yields.
The cows have really eaten large quantities of buffer feeding throughout the summer, but this has, I think, paid for itself in better condition scores and generally healthier cattle . I can honestly say that on the whole I have never seen the cows looking as good.Fingers crossed they can make the transition to winter housing with little upset. The cows have actually been in at night for the last 2 weeks and I'm sure they have appreciated it just as much as I have . It's no fun walking the dark fields at 3.30 in the morning trying to find cows.
One of our main "projects" for the summer was to put cubicle mattresses down. These have been a great success with the cows taking to them instantly. They always had rubber mats before , but they had a tendency to move about a bit, so these are far better.
I too have found the mattresses to be so much easier to work with , no more pushing and shoving mats back on the concrete twice a day , so it's a win win situation .
Last month we also upgraded the pulsation in the milking parlour. This was a job that was well overdue , in fact should probably have been done about 10 years ago when we last did a bit of work in the parlour. We have taken out the old Fullwood pulsation with the old master relays and now each unit has it's own pulsation , which only works when the cow is actually getting milked . it takes a little getting used to a first , when all the units are off and there is no sound of the thump thump thump of the old pulsators. The benefits to the cow are that that we should have eliminated any variation in the vacuum levels that the old set up might have had , and indeed , so far , the vacuum level gauge never moves at all during milking. The other benefit that all milkers are noticing is that the milkings do seem to be quicker, so that's got to be a good thing for both animal and operator .
Chloanne Lowick finally went on sale from Cogent breeding last month .He is available as a young sire at the moment.
It's always great to see a bull that you've bred go on to be used in other breeders herds. I'm sure he will do some good in their herds.
Soon it will be time for all the youngstock to come inside and then it truly will feel like winter. Surely we can't have as bad a time as we have had the last couple of years. It would be nice just to have as good a winter as we have had autumn. Fingers crossed !
