Dairy farming discussion

[masseyjack590]

where i'm going on work experience next year is on a new zealand system like jakescot says 

cows all dried off in november and over christmas then starts milking again in the new year 

[archbarch]

that system has alot going for it, not just cost but easing labour requirements aswell.

Some interesting times ahead by the sound of things.

Are the 3 main causes for loss of milk yield still mastitis, fertility and lameness or have they changed in order at all?

when any slurry bans come into force will it still be possible to inject or is that a no no aswell?

Thats interesting about the vets having fewer herds on their books but more cows has their workload/income been reduced?

[jakescot]

the irish lads have a ban , some of them could tell you how it operates over there.................bear in mind its not a given this was just the guy`s opinion also that of one of the rivers authority folks too rather than definite policy.

our vet I know , has contracts with these big dairies , I presume they negotiate prices for work done etc rather than pay a call out fee everytime as they have various  health programmes  such as  daily, every other day, three times a week,twice a week or weekly visits as the norm. As to his workload and income, I don`t know but he used to have a partner who retired, he replaced him with two lady vets, a third joined them. she  left after a spell  so there are three vets instead of two in the practice.....more ponies around and a lot of small animal work. I havent asked whether he`s better or worse off .

[nashmach]

Correct John - we do have a slurry ban in place.

It depends on what part of the country you are in but in the drier Zone A part it is from (I think) 1st November to 15th January.

[1/32collector]

Under EU nitrates regulations, irish farmers are banned from spreading slurry between mid-October and January

[denis086]

Under EU nitrates regulations, irish farmers are banned from spreading slurry between mid-October and January

usually they end up changing it though because the weather doesnt suit but thats what you get by trying farm by the calender 

[Mickheff89]

well the ban may aswell be lifted because every tanker in the country is flat out. I know of a lot of farmers even resorting to late night spreading so in order not to be caught. With all the rain that fell they really ahve no option. Tanks are full!! Im in college in cork and ive heard that there have been hundreds of calls to the environmental office about it, shur theres nothing they can do

[denis086]

ya but youd want to be careful with spreading thick slurry it would want to be watered down we were told theyve caught a few people using aerial photos of a field one day and a darker the next but i thinkthats mor for people that are putting into waterways and near towns and then around us theres even farmers reporting farmers which is terrible all they do by doing it is get a bad name around the place but the council just call up the farmer thats been reported but dont come out to investigate    contractors are using the trailing shoe though to beat the photos and then people cant smell anything either

[Mickheff89]

well obviously common sense comes into the equation. Its one thing throwing out the water but if your going to be going around mid december blackening fields you deserve to be caught

Im in agri college 2 days a week for all the practicals and we were there monday and tuesday this week and they had two tanks drawing out of the yard. But at the end of it all there are allowances, solied water can be spread all year round, its just a matter of how soiled your water is

[tractorbob]

i herd a rumor other day ,that the goverment grant system is commimng back on slurry stores ...

[archbarch]

in this weeks Farmers Weekly there is an article for a proposed dairy unit at Nocton, Lincolnshire for 8100 cows, housed indoors, milked through 2 x  80 point rotary parlours.

My first thought is being old fashioned cows should be able to graze, but then i would rather 90m litres of milk be produced in the UK under these conditions than have it imported.

[jordantaylor]

apparently on countryfile last week the guy who has proposed it had said that at least 400 cows will be grazed on grassland for part of the year but i dont agree with it really. i think cows should be milked twice a day not three times and should all be able to get to grassland pasture everyday. at poplars we graze the cows all year round, we even try to get them out in the winter if the grass is ok, not much this year though. just imagine how many calves there will be each year and the farms it will put out of business

[masseyjack590]

yeah but if the milk would of been imported from somewhere where we don't know what conditions the cows have i'd rather have milk from nocton  

[Jdeere6910]

There should be roughly 25 calves a day from the nocton dairy. Altough the cows are housed throughout their lactation welfare will have to be high or it will cause major problems for the farm. Also I would rather have milk coming from Nocton than being imported from europe.

[jordantaylor]

but if you think about the disease side it will spread faster due to all of them being housed up. if foot and mouth hit (i hope it dosent) imagine the loss of all those cows and there will be no smaller farms to produce the milk as they would have been put out of business

[FordTractorCrazy]

this has been a really interesting read. Being from Holland, things are at some points similar, but in a lot of areas, quite different.

for example : slurry, every farm needs to have 6 months of storage capacity for slurry, i may be wrong as my father no longer farms since 5 years, and it might have been extended to 8-9 months. There is also a ban from mid-october to mid-Februari

robot milking : it's quite common over here. calculations say that you should have atleast 60 dairy cows per unit with a maximum of 80 due to operation management. The units costs around 100000 euro's. The farmer needs to read the computer a few times a day to check the data and see if a cow didnt go milking, or didnt get its pre-determined amount of extra food. Also checking out the herd a few times a day is in order to see if cows are sick etc. Due to good sanitairy conditions, mastititus is not a big problem.

cow health : most dairy farmers have holstein/frisians and these average between 8000 to 10000 liters a year for the top farms. However, a few years back, the cows only made it to around 4-5 lactations, and then were replaced as they werent sturdy enough. Some new insights have created new breeding goals where cows can easily make 6-8 lactations, thus needing less heifers each year to replace old stock. Most farms have up to date stables. Most farms in the area i live, have built new stables in the past 5 years. i think around 40% uses robots, other the more traditional 2x6-8 or caroussel parlours..

cow herd size : with the decrease of dairy farms, an increase of herd sizes have occured. And since 2 years, farmers are making huge financial risks by guessing that the milk market will be free and unlimited, and thus production can be increased , and already building bigger stables etc.. This has resulted in farms going from 250 to 750 cows, and 80 to 400 cows, and multiple from 60 to 120/150 cows in this area alone.. The choice is not only to increase herd size. It is also if you want to do the farm management/work on your own, or getting 1 or more hired helps. So many farms stick to around 120-150 cows which with the newest engineering should be doable on your own.

So a lot of similarities with the UK, but also some quite different things.

One remark. With landprices being very high over here.. (55000 to 75000 euro's an hectare (10000 square metres) a system like in New Zealand is impossible as results per acre would be way to low to earn back the investments.

[Jdeere6910]

but if you think about the disease side it will spread faster due to all of them being housed up. if foot and mouth hit (i hope it dosent) imagine the loss of all those cows and there will be no smaller farms to produce the milk as they would have been put out of business

The disease perspective is a major downside to a farm of this size and could pose many problems, but there are few dairy farms around that area so it is less likeley to spread as quickly

[archbarch]

interesting to hear about dairy farming in Holland.

As for disease risks in such a large herd, kept indoors i would say it would be less of risk than people think, there wont be too many herds close by , because of it being a large herd the unit will no doubt have more disease precautions in place than most dairy farms.

When you get large units like this it affects the price paid to the smaller producer, i dont believe we will ever see a fair price for milk when people are happy to pay for bottled water???

[ploughmaster]

Don't suffer under the delusion that Messers Willes and Barnes are proposing this for the good of UK dairying!!  It is purely to line their own pockets, and as milk imported from outside the UK is already mostly produced cheaper than UK milk, the lower expected production costs of Nocton Dairies means it is likely to replace existing UK production rather than replace imported milk. With the expected greater efficiency and higher than average expected milk yield, 8100 cows at Nocton will have a major negative impact on the number of cows elsewhere in Britain - possibly displacing as many as 10 000 cows at the less efficient end of the industry.

The animals will be housed for 100% of their lactation, and will only be turned out to grass when they are dry.  The proposal is to feed them principally on lucerne, and bed them on sand which will cleaned and re-used, with the resulting slurry being processed through an anaerobic digestion plant and the effluent piped away for distribution on neighbouring farmland (they say they have access to around 24,000 acres nearby).

Whilst livestock are relatively sparse round here, there are at least a couple of smaller dairy farms within a few miles of Nocton, and a number of farms with beef, sheep or pig enterprises.  Nocton Dairies will not therefore, be totally isolated in an animal/disease free zone, and in any case (as has already been suggested) the thought of over 8000 cows living within a site only a few hundred yards across doesn't bear thinking about should F&M or similar strike  \

If anyone is interested Nocton Dairies website can be found here: http://noctondairies.co.uk/

and if you have the odd couple of days( ) to look through the planning application itself and related supporting documents, responses etc, all is available to view on NKDC planning portal: http://planningonline.n-kesteven.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=KUSYLLLLX0000.  Be warned though, there are around 1500 documents including 3rd party comments (mainly NIMBY/Treehugger type objections) and some of them take an eternity to download.  The actual plans and the main supporting documents are worth looking at though. 

Whether it will be approved or not, I don't know, but some aspects (particularly the early submissions and the Environmental Plan) seem to have drawn criticism from the consultants that have been engaged by NKDC. Some aspects of the plan come across to me as somewhat naive.

[Jdeere6910]

When you get large units like this it affects the price paid to the smaller producer, i dont believe we will ever see a fair price for milk when people are happy to pay for bottled water???

An good point there, How can bottled water be worth twice as much as the same quantity of milk, considering all the work that is needed to produce the milk in the first place?