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Weekly Notes - 7th October 2021

We can already see the benefits from last week’s decision-making, along with increasing temperatures on our pasture growth rates and average pasture covers but we are not out of the woods yet.Key Decisions:• Implementing 10n7 has had its challenges with regard to pasture allocation and inshed feeding but the team is slowly putting systems in place and getting their head around the complexities of this milking frequency. The farm team has been basing their pasture allocation and paddock fenci...

Weekly Notes - 30th September 2021

Key decisions:• In the interest of preserving BCS and feeding the cows as best as we can with current feed resources, we have decided to put all the herds onto 10n7 milkings for a period of approximately 3 weeks until pasture cover and the weather improves allowing us to look forward into the future and match feed supply and demand.• All alternative milking frequencies were considered i.e. full OAD, 3 in 2 and more traditional 10n7 however we have settled on a modified 10 milkings in 7 days ...

Weekly Notes - 23rd September 2021

Key Decisions this week:• All herds will move to 3 grazings per paddock (1.9 ha/day) for the majority of the paddocks• If herds are not cleaning up paddocks the inshed feeding will be turned off for the afternoon if required with the aim of hitting residuals so that mobs don’t need to go back for a cleanup grazing as this takes time and creates extra walking increasing the risk of lameness.• The LI FB herd have used significantly more baleage than was in their feed budget and has a limit...

Weekly Notes - 17th September 2021

It has definitely been a challenging week on farm with 51 mm of rain being recorded. Ensuring cows were well fed and minimising damage to pastures has been a key priority and as such, we decided to put all herds onto OAD milking last Saturday (11 September) for an initial period of 5 days. This allowed more time for the team to supplementary feed out to the four milking herds, 2 springer herds, 2 late dry herds and the colostrums and reduced cow movement in and out of paddocks.Key Decisions this...

Weekly Notes - 2nd September 2021

Key decisions this week:• Due to the weather our pasture utilisation has dropped but we continue to select paddocks based on ground conditions and try different techniques to minimise pasture damage. Even with the use of supplements to hold our round we have still used 3.5-5.4 ha more per farmlet and 18ha more across the whole farm than the spring rotation plan.• Next week’s springer draft will most likely result in kale and FB springer mobs joining together. We need to continue feeding th...

Weekly Notes - 26th August 2021

Calving has slowed a bit in the last few days but with between 59 and 69% of the individual herds having calved, there is definitely no shortage of work for the team.Fine-tuning our supplementary feed management has been a focus of the team this week as feeding at this time of year can have a large impact on successfully setting up the lactation. It is a fine balance between making sure cows are not underfed, causing pasture damage and limiting production, but also wanting to achieve acceptable ...

Weekly Notes - 25th August 2021

Key decisions this week include:1. Under Covid 19 level 4 the farm is now closed to all non-essential visitors. Strict hygiene and social distancing protocols have been implemented where practical masks are available for use when in close confinement. Technicians are only on site for farm walks at this stage2. Milkers have been split into their farmlets and are now being milked TAD.3. Colostrums will stay on OAD milking4. With uncalved heifer numbers declining the heifer springers will be combin...

Weekly Notes - 12th August 2021

It has been nice to have a wee reprieve from the rain over the last couple of days however it hasn't made much difference to the ground conditions. Like many across the region, the farm team are doing everything they can to manage the wet conditions but things don't always go to plan. Today we milked 31 new mums - our biggest calving day so far this season.Key Decisions1. With reduced pasture utilisation in the wet conditions baleage is being offered to the milkers to keep intake up without havi...

Weekly Notes - 5th August 2021

The 2021-22 officially started yesterday with the PSC of the heifers. With already 65 cows in milk, we are off to a good start. APC across the farmlets is good and we have our spring supplement supply on hand. Spring rotation plans and spring feed budgets are now operational. Springer paddocks are not quite at the required pre-graze targets for our 20 m2 daily allocation so we have increased the baleage allocation to fill the deficit DM deficit.Key Decisions this week:1. decrease fodder beet all...

Weekly Notes - 28th July 2021

What a difference a couple of days of sunshine and a bit of wind makes. Crop paddocks at SDH have dried out and the pasture paddocks have firmed up. It is nice to see good growth rates this fortnight, putting all the farmlets in a good position for the start of the season.The farmer reference group met this week to discuss the farm systems modelling that has been completed to help determine the farm systems comparisons for the 2022-23 season (see table attached)Key decisions this week include:â€...

Weekly Notes - 22nd July 2021

It has been quite a busy week on the farm this week with the team doing BCS, the first springer drafts, N intake animal sampling, and fitting the new Allflex collars!Key decisions this week include:- While the number of springers is low we are running the cows in one mob and they are getting MgO and DCP dusting. We will split these out into kale and fodder beet groups after the next draft and stop dusting the DCP to the kale cows.- We reallocated cows to wintering mobs so now have an early calvi...

Weekly Notes - 8th July 2021

With 20 mm more rain in June than last winter plus 10 mm already in July conditions across the farm are wet. Most of the crop paddocks are holding up OK but we have been using the wheat straw in the worst ones to provide a drier lying surface for the cows.Key decisions this week include:1. Focusing our attention on calving and springtime. Key pre-spring items on our list include:o Pulling together our springer paddock plan and how we will draft up mobs. Heifers will be managed in a separate spri...

Field Day July 2021

Lying times on crop - what is being achieved? GHG footprints of our farmlets details on our emissions reductions, Missed getting to the Field Day?  Download our handout in the link below...

Weekly Notes - 25th June 2021

The farm team and cows have been enjoying a couple of settled weeks on farm but that might change in the next few days. Our contingency plans for wet soil conditions include moving paddocks, rolling out the wheat straw to provide a more comfortable lying surface and adjusting our back fences to provide access to better areas that have already been grazed. From a feeding perspective, we have additional baleage in the feed budget and this will be used as required.Key Decisions this week:• adjust...

Weekly Notes - 10th June 2021

This week marks the start of measurements in the two paddocks in the Hedgehope-Makarewa Catchment crop establishment method pilot study. Cows will be on these paddocks for about a month so the tech team will be busy with soil measures and behaviour devices that have been put on 140 cows.Key decisions this week• measure the distance to the feeding face in each crop paddock so we can check our feed budget and slow the cows down through the kale paddocks by adding in more baleage if needed.• Co...

Weekly Notes - 3rd June 2021

Cows are now all well settled onto crops but the fodder beet animals are still transitioning to their final winter allocation. We now have 12 wintering mobs across the farm so the farm team are definitely keeping busy. Once the fodder beet cows are fully transitioned life will be a little easier as we are currently adding additional baleage to these mobs each day.Key decisions for this week:• Pasture walks and weekly meetings with notes will now be fortnightly• 2 mobs were moved from their e...

Wintering from a cow's perspective Telford presentation May 2021

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Field Day March 2021

Nitrogen loss under crops, lying times and cow welfare, do cropping techniques make a difference, farmer tactics for wet weather management.Missed getting to the Field Day?  Download our handout in the link below...

Field October 2020

Update on Winter grazing action group, changes to national water quality framework, winter behaviour trial and lying times, nitrogen loss under cropMissed getting to the Field Day?  Download our handout in the link below...

July 2020 Virtual Field Day

3 years of Kale vs beet wintering - what do we know? Farm Update? Calves are smaller when born from cows who winter on fodder beetMissed getting to the Field Day?  Download our handout in the link below...

Colostrum quality

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Effect of crop on blood metabolites 154_162

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Field Day Farmers Forum March 2020

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Field Day October 2019

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Field October 2018

Missed getting to the Field Day?  Download our handout in the link below...