With the cows now out on extremely rich , high in protein, spring grass , it's now time to produce as much milk as possible at the cheapest time of the year . Grazed grass should always be your cheapest input in milk production in the summer months .Despite the cold weather , it has been fairly dry and grass growth has been happening , all be it a little slow in some of the fields.
However we do like to give the cows alittle of what they like , so they are fed a "buffer" ration , this is a little token feed of a formulated ration containing slightly better but most importantly , consistant, ingredients that should complement the grass outside . Ingredients that are in our buffer feed at the moment are :
2kg protein blend
10kg grass silage
0.5kg straw
0.1kg minerals
2.5kg rolled barley
These ingredients are mixed in our Keenan feeder and are fed in the feed passage for the cows to pick away at just after milking .The ration itself is formulated for us by Keenan nutrition. The above diet is per head/day.
As the grazing season goes on , the quality of the grass will start to decrease and that will be the time to tweak the buffer feed ration accordingly , all in the aim of maintaining milk production , but most importantly of all , maintaining margins and efficiency
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Monday, 10 May 2010
Spring Is Here ? ! ?
Well here we are , May 10th , the cows are out both day and night , yet the temperatures of late have been terrible to say the least . Grass growth has been fairly good despite the cold , although I can't see us starting the silage cut as early as last year .
The cows are still getting a token gesture of TMR , pretty much just as much as they can eat after both milkings, at least it takes the edge off their appetites when they go out !
So it's been more than a while since the last update and we have been busier than ever .
The cows all got their annual Tb test in Feb, thankfully all passing again .At the same time they are all tested for johnnes and also tested for our health scheme , so to date we are Johnnes, Bvd and Lepto accredited, a status that we are keen to hang on to .
As mentioned in the last post , the classifier was in , in early feb , it was a good visit .The Chloanne girls did very well .
They are now ;
Chloanne Webster Gracious EX92(3)
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 3 GP83
Chloanne Spooky Gracious G75
Chloanne Tulip Gracious GP83
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 VG88
Chloanne Hanno Gracious VG85
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious VG89
Frankham Sept Storm Ethel VG85
So all in all , i am getting there .
Notable in her abscence from the above list is Chloanne Magna Gracious, who calved on the 8th March. Sadly after a day of looking a bit under the weather , she became a classic "downer" cow and never really recovered . She was put down , not an easy deciscion to make , but one which was the right thing to do for the cow .
In mid feb , i also lost a 3 month old heifer , Chloanne Planet Gracious , reason unknown, that was totally unexpected and all the more gaulling as i was away for the week in question , so have no real answers as to what happened .
Replacements for the Chloanne 'herd' are very thin on the ground at present , with 301, 202 and 302 all having bull calves .Hopefully this heifer drought will ease soon .
On a better note the first Chloanne Gallagher calves are now on the ground , i think at the time of posting there is 19 daughters in 10 herds.
It is quite a bizarre feeling to see offspring from one of your bulls , being born on someone elses farm .
This year we are thinking of replacing some of the cubicles in the cow sheds. This is long overdue and hopefully for next winter , the girls will be lying in the lap of luxury, in better sized beds for the modern Holstein cow.
As you can see from the main page of the blog , i can see when and where people have visited this site . It is amazing to think that people from Usa, Canada , Moscow , India and all over the Uk have clicked from Twitter, YouTube, or even just Googled "Chloanne" . I really must make more of an effort to keep this blog up to date , so here's hoping !
The cows are still getting a token gesture of TMR , pretty much just as much as they can eat after both milkings, at least it takes the edge off their appetites when they go out !
So it's been more than a while since the last update and we have been busier than ever .
The cows all got their annual Tb test in Feb, thankfully all passing again .At the same time they are all tested for johnnes and also tested for our health scheme , so to date we are Johnnes, Bvd and Lepto accredited, a status that we are keen to hang on to .
As mentioned in the last post , the classifier was in , in early feb , it was a good visit .The Chloanne girls did very well .
They are now ;
Chloanne Webster Gracious EX92(3)
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 3 GP83
Chloanne Spooky Gracious G75
Chloanne Tulip Gracious GP83
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 VG88
Chloanne Hanno Gracious VG85
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious VG89
Frankham Sept Storm Ethel VG85
So all in all , i am getting there .
Notable in her abscence from the above list is Chloanne Magna Gracious, who calved on the 8th March. Sadly after a day of looking a bit under the weather , she became a classic "downer" cow and never really recovered . She was put down , not an easy deciscion to make , but one which was the right thing to do for the cow .
In mid feb , i also lost a 3 month old heifer , Chloanne Planet Gracious , reason unknown, that was totally unexpected and all the more gaulling as i was away for the week in question , so have no real answers as to what happened .
Replacements for the Chloanne 'herd' are very thin on the ground at present , with 301, 202 and 302 all having bull calves .Hopefully this heifer drought will ease soon .
On a better note the first Chloanne Gallagher calves are now on the ground , i think at the time of posting there is 19 daughters in 10 herds.
It is quite a bizarre feeling to see offspring from one of your bulls , being born on someone elses farm .
This year we are thinking of replacing some of the cubicles in the cow sheds. This is long overdue and hopefully for next winter , the girls will be lying in the lap of luxury, in better sized beds for the modern Holstein cow.
As you can see from the main page of the blog , i can see when and where people have visited this site . It is amazing to think that people from Usa, Canada , Moscow , India and all over the Uk have clicked from Twitter, YouTube, or even just Googled "Chloanne" . I really must make more of an effort to keep this blog up to date , so here's hoping !
Friday, 22 January 2010
2009 NHBC Herd Competition Results
Last night , at the Northumbria Holstein Breeders Club AGM , the club also held their prize giving for the annual herds competition , which was judged way back in August 2009 . As ever ,i tried my best to put forward a strong team of cows and i was very pleasantly surprised with the results .
Our successes were as follows ;
1st place in the Large herds class (BOCM trophy)
2nd place in the Cow on Inspection class with Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious
1st place in the Super Cow class with Chloanne Webster Gracious (Barclays Bank trophy)
1st place in the Heifer in Milk class with Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 (Alan Jackson trophy)
3rd place in the Heifer on Inspection class with Ellenneff Crest Becula 11
1st place in the Cow Family class with the Gracious family (Hunday trophy)
Top Herd on Production (Chas Halliday trophy)
The above results were fantastic .
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2 has once again held up very well in the Top 1000 cows in the UK on PLI , holding a VERY respectable 74th place with a PLI of £228.
Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious is also still in the Top 1000 , with a PLI of £206 , which places her in 211th .
With figures like that , i am very much looking forward to hearing from Cogent Breeding Ltd in the next week or so about if they would be interested in perhaps contract mating Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious 2.
The classifier is due here on the 2nd Feb , so fingers crossed that some of the girls move up , it would be great to get Chloanne Hanno Gracious done again, but also to see how Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious does , she is really looking well just now , and always raises a smile every time she comes into the parlour for milking.
I will post the full set of results for the herd competition in the next few days !
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Snowy Scene's of Northfield !
Some wintery scenes of the weather we are experiencing at the moment !
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
BBBBRRRRRRRRRRR ! ! !
Well it's the 5th of January , and the Met office are telling us that this is the most prolonged cold spell for over 30 years , and God , is it cold .
Snow has fallen daily since before Christmas and if it wasn't for the fact that i have to work in the stuff, it would be fair to say it was impressive . But now , a joke is a joke , and the novelty is wearing off rapidly.
I had entered the Chloanne embryo's for a sale on Thursday , but that has been postponed until later in the month. The catalogue was online and hopefully this should supply a link
http://www.wrightmanley.co.uk/agricultural-livestock/sale-catalogues/files/January(1)%20Club%202010.pdf
The waiting game has started for Frankham Sept Storm Ethel , as her due date approaches, fingers crossed and all that !
The main herd themselves are doing away reasonably well , could do better i suppose but until the weather improves , there's little more i can ask them to do . They are actually averaging just under 29 ltr/hd/day , so all things considered , not bad .
We have just finished calving our latest batch of young heifers , which were in calf to the Aberdeen Angus bull. Whilst the last 2 batches have calved down fairly easily to this bull , the last batch have involved more assisted calvings than i would have hoped for , and as a result of this we are looking into getting rid of the Angus bull and just continuing to use our black and white young bull , Chloanne Hannover !
The snow is playing havoc with trying to get staff here to work , and it's just anybodies guess as to when this cold snap will ease.I suppose it is healthier for the livestock than the usual wet , damp conditions , and hopefully it will thaw GRADUALLY so as to spare me the job of dealing with burst pipes next week. We have around 300,000 gallons of slurry waiting to be spread on the grass , but as it's not the best practice to spread in the snow , we are waiting for a break in the weather.
Snow has fallen daily since before Christmas and if it wasn't for the fact that i have to work in the stuff, it would be fair to say it was impressive . But now , a joke is a joke , and the novelty is wearing off rapidly.
I had entered the Chloanne embryo's for a sale on Thursday , but that has been postponed until later in the month. The catalogue was online and hopefully this should supply a link
http://www.wrightmanley.co.uk/agricultural-livestock/sale-catalogues/files/January(1)%20Club%202010.pdf
The waiting game has started for Frankham Sept Storm Ethel , as her due date approaches, fingers crossed and all that !
The main herd themselves are doing away reasonably well , could do better i suppose but until the weather improves , there's little more i can ask them to do . They are actually averaging just under 29 ltr/hd/day , so all things considered , not bad .
We have just finished calving our latest batch of young heifers , which were in calf to the Aberdeen Angus bull. Whilst the last 2 batches have calved down fairly easily to this bull , the last batch have involved more assisted calvings than i would have hoped for , and as a result of this we are looking into getting rid of the Angus bull and just continuing to use our black and white young bull , Chloanne Hannover !
The snow is playing havoc with trying to get staff here to work , and it's just anybodies guess as to when this cold snap will ease.I suppose it is healthier for the livestock than the usual wet , damp conditions , and hopefully it will thaw GRADUALLY so as to spare me the job of dealing with burst pipes next week. We have around 300,000 gallons of slurry waiting to be spread on the grass , but as it's not the best practice to spread in the snow , we are waiting for a break in the weather.
Saturday, 26 December 2009
The Stuff of Legend
Following on from the last post on this site , I have signed a contract with Cogent Breeding Ltd for a Morningview Legend pregnancy with Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious. She is safely in calf now for this contract and if the resulting calf is a bull , then hopefully he will go on to be tested by Cogent in the same way that Chloanne Gallagher was.
Chloanne Hanno Gracious has calved , she had a heifer calf on the 27/11/09 and the sire was Ensenda Taboo Planet , the calf therefore being called Chloanne Planet Gracious. Also , on the 09/12/09 , Chloanne Tulip Gracious calved , this time resulting in a heifer calf by Robthom moscow , so the calf has been named Chloanne Moscow Gracious.
Chloanne Dolman Ethel is nearly at the stage to breed again , and at the moment I am trying to choose a suitable sire , most probably sexed too , as I really do need more members of the amazing Ethel family .
Talking of the Ethel family , Frankham Sept Storm Ethel is the next Chloanne cow to calve and she is due 16/01/10 and the sire is Golden Oaks Alexander , a heifer calf would be the best possible start to the new year !
Chloanne Magna Gracious has been dried off , in readiness for calving down in early March , i know this is a bit early to be drying her off , but really she has worked so hard through her last lactation , that she has earned a good rest .
In 2 weeks time I am going to try to sell the embryo's that we flushed earlier in the year .
There is a sale at Wright Manley's down at Beeston Auction Mart , Cheshire on the 7th Jan , and it will be an interesting experience and really the first time that i have offered Chloanne genetics for sale , so fingers crossed that the breeding is the type of thing that other breeders will want in their herds.
Looking further ahead , it will be the annual herds competition results again soon , and i am keeping all fingers crossed that we can even do half as well as we did last year .
Chloanne Hanno Gracious has calved , she had a heifer calf on the 27/11/09 and the sire was Ensenda Taboo Planet , the calf therefore being called Chloanne Planet Gracious. Also , on the 09/12/09 , Chloanne Tulip Gracious calved , this time resulting in a heifer calf by Robthom moscow , so the calf has been named Chloanne Moscow Gracious.
Chloanne Dolman Ethel is nearly at the stage to breed again , and at the moment I am trying to choose a suitable sire , most probably sexed too , as I really do need more members of the amazing Ethel family .
Talking of the Ethel family , Frankham Sept Storm Ethel is the next Chloanne cow to calve and she is due 16/01/10 and the sire is Golden Oaks Alexander , a heifer calf would be the best possible start to the new year !
Chloanne Magna Gracious has been dried off , in readiness for calving down in early March , i know this is a bit early to be drying her off , but really she has worked so hard through her last lactation , that she has earned a good rest .
In 2 weeks time I am going to try to sell the embryo's that we flushed earlier in the year .
There is a sale at Wright Manley's down at Beeston Auction Mart , Cheshire on the 7th Jan , and it will be an interesting experience and really the first time that i have offered Chloanne genetics for sale , so fingers crossed that the breeding is the type of thing that other breeders will want in their herds.
Looking further ahead , it will be the annual herds competition results again soon , and i am keeping all fingers crossed that we can even do half as well as we did last year .
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