General
Requested quality analysis on potential silage to purchase
Hold rotation length aroung 32-35 days
Maintain a minimum of 18 day return time for new grass paddocks
Pasture DM% ranging between 15.8 and 20.7%
Pasture quality range 11.1-12.5 MJ ME/kg DM: 18-25% crude protein; 38-45% NDF; 18.3-25.7% Non structural carbohydrates
Prioritising paddocks for deep aeration as wont be able to do all potential paddocks this autumn; will use the ground hog on lower priority paddocks
Standard herd
Direct supplementary feed costs from last week = $2.86/cow/day and $16.90 estimated milk revenue
Swede yields currently range between 6.0 and 10.6 T DM/ha; leaf DM of 10-11% and bulb DM of 8-10%
Next 30 culls to go on the 24th March - lowest producting empties, 7 Johnes positive animals and some discretionary culls
Resort herds into early calving lighter cows vs later calving and cows already at calving BCS and prioritise the better quality paddocks to the early calving lighter cows
Future herd
Increase inshed feeding by 0.5 kg DM/cow/day to reduce reliance on silage - PKE proportion now 50% to balance supplement cost with desire to reduce reliance on non locally grown supplement
First 8 culls to go on 24th March - lowest producing empty cows
Current direct supplementary feed costs - $2.09/cow/day and $18.60 estimated milk revenue
32 bales of baleage harvested from Italian paddocks for wintering
