Farmer Focus: Adding all three cuts to ration makes winter diet consistent
© Jeff Holmes I’ve not fallen off the new bike, yet! We managed a couple of days up in Angus for half term with the boys and took it with us in the back of the pickup.
I’d love to say it was great fun, but the combination of struggling up some hills and watching dust flying behind seed drills up there really had me at a low ebb.
See also: Advice on using data to deliver consistent rations
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They say that well sown is half grown, so with that in mind I probably should have left our seed in the bag.
We’ve managed to puddle in 10ha of winter barley and about 20ha of winter wheat straight behind the plough.
Weather conditions right through September have been atrocious – the rain gauge telling me we have more thsn 160mm.
Remarkably, the barley is up through and looking OK, thanks to the new drains – only time will tell with the wheat.
Maybe I should concentrate on just growing grass, although we couldn’t even get any autumn reseeding done.
Zero grazing, as expected, has come to a halt. There’s grass everywhere, but ground conditions had us beat in mid-October and cows were beginning to eat less of it.
On paper, the analysis still looked decent – nevertheless, they’re always a better judge than a laboratory computer.
The transition to full winter ration has been fine, with milk volume holding and solids slightly increasing, albeit at more expense.
To try to make it as stable and consistent as possible over the winter, we’re feeding a mixture of all three cuts of silage plus the wholecrop.
First cut has analysed really well, but I don’t want to use it all up then have a massive change on to second cut that is disappointingly low in energy.
Youngstock continue to graze outside as conditions have been mild and will come in over the next couple of weeks.
They’ve been joined by some woolly friends to try to get covers down a bit before the winter – they’ve already started their “Great Escape” act.
I enjoyed a whistlestop tour over to Ireland for the National Ploughing Championships.
It really is a fantastic, proper agricultural show and a day was hardly enough to see all the trade and machinery stands and enjoy some famous Irish hospitality.