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:
• adjusted crop allocations to a few mobs this week based on new crop yield information and feedback from the farm team on residuals and cow behaviour.
• Back fences and portable water troughs continue to be moved daily
• Mineral supplementation to the fodder beet mobs is continuing with loose lick phosphorus plus DCP onto baleage
• X3 slips left the farm in the last fortnight.
• X7 fodder beet cows that had been in the lame mob were returned to their wintering mobs following the transition back to full beet allocation
• There are x4 cows – x1 Std Kale, x2 Std FB and x1 LI FB that we have decided to keep off crop for the winter. They will be kept in a separate area and offered ad libitum baleage and 3 kg PKE/day.
• Total feed allocation to the R1’s has been increased from 7.3 to 7.8 kg DM/animal/day by increasing the crop allocation. We have calculated that we have about 90 days of beet left for the R1’s so have increased their beet allocation slightly and will reassess the allocation at the end of their current paddock. Any surplus beet will either be lifted and sold or lifted and used for early lactation supplement for the fodder beet herds.
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