27/09/2021

Week ending 27-9-21 farm notes:

FARM PERFORMANCE

PGR of 61 kg DM/ha/day this week and a lift in cover to 2350 kg DM/ha including our silage paddocks.  APC is 2234 kgDM/ha without silage paddocks.

We averaged 19 kg DM/cow/day pasture offered plus 1.5 kg PK/cow/day for the week.  The cows are holding at 2.1 kg MS/cow/day.  Milk production is 2.9% ahead month to date and 0.7% ahead season to date. We have supplied 98% days of excellence from 83 days of production.

Pre-graze targets are back up to 2800-2900 kg DM/ha/day and PK won’t be needed this week.  Cows weren’t eating what was being offered by the end of last week anyway. FEI peaked at 7.6 at the end of this week which was enough to trigger an alert even with cows eating such low levels of PKE.

Third and last metri-check completed, with four cows treated.  25 cows in total this season (6% of the herd).

Mating started on the 22^nd September and we have inseminated 181 cows after 7 days (25 cows/day).  We require an average of 17 cows/day to meet 90% 3-week submission rate.

We budget $2153 for repro intervention and this year we have spent approximately $1900 on CIDRs for 28 cows (6.8%) that had calved more than 42 days and not had a pre-mating heat, and a PG shot for 100 cows that had a cycle in the week prior to mating. Six years ago we were CIDRing up to 140 cows.  Last year we CIDRed 27 cows with no PG used. CIDRs went in on the 23 September and cows will be mated 30^th September - 1^st October.

For the PG cows the first 60 that cycled 5-7 days prior to PSM received a PG shot on the 22^nd September.  The remaining 40 cows that cycled 1-4 days prior to PSM received a PG shot on the 27^th September.  This has the effect of mating these 100 cows in the first two weeks of mating. We don’t use sexed semen on these cows and still have enough cows coming up to fill our daily quota of 8 sexed semen straws/day on high BW cows.

All heifers have been mated and are now running with bulls.

Crop paddocks were sprayed with Glyphosate on 19^th September, and annual paddocks will be cut on Thursday and ensiled on Friday. The remaining paddocks have all been grazed.  We tried pre-mowing some of the sprayed paddocks to see if the grazing resulted in a cleaner paddock but found up to 8 slugs/m² under the clumps left behind. That’s up to 80,000 slugs munching away at our new crop seedlings!!  With slug numbers reported to be higher this year we happily spend $70/ha on slug bait by applying 5 kg/ha after final graze and 5 kg/ha at sowing.  For some paddocks we will apply up to 20 kg/ha of bait depending on monitoring data (the sack or log in the paddock that we check under).

ANIMAL WELL-BEING

So far this season we have had 24 lame cows, and 11 cows treated for mastitis. With zero deaths and eight cows treated with milk fever, one RFM and 25 cows with metritis, we consider the cows to be in good health. We recorded our lowest ever SCC pick up of 60,000 yesterday - a testament to the hard work the team is putting into our <150,000 SCC target for the season.

Whole herd BCS was carried out on the 24^th September with an average BCS of 4.6, down from 4.8 at the beginning of the month.  Seven cows are below BCS 4; we have checked these out.  Five cows are being milked OAD at the moment (all in the small herd). Heifers average BCS 4.8.

Cows continue to receive selenium, cobalt, copper, zinc, iodine and magnesium chloride in the Dosatron, and magnesium oxide via paddock dusting.

BUSINESS HEALTH

Nothing to report this week

ENVIRONMENT

Year 8 St Peter’s Students helped us plant out over 1000 plants from the school’s Trees for Survival programme.  Using a handy Makita hole borer and having the plants laid out ahead of the students made for a very effective two hours of planting. We have been lucky to receive a donation of 280 plants from Karapiro school that we will plant up along another drain where they will be able to see them when the cycleway opens at the beginning of next year.

QUALITY WORKPLACE

Mental Health Awareness week is about taking time to korero. Farming can get hectic but Tom and I have a weekly routine of clearing our diaries every Tuesday between 10-2pm to carry out the farm walk and process the data for the week.  It’s during this time that we chat about our aspirations for the farm but also for ourselves and our families.  We try to solve the problems of the world and also provide a listening ear to each other’s frustrations.  It’s a time to be present and listen, every now and then I miss a piece of data but I can always get it later.  Taking care of our mental health can’t wait.

COMMUNITY

The last of our Wednesday weekly catch-ups is about our experience of using the Healthy Hoof process to manage the high rates of lameness (34% of the herd) we experienced in the 2019/20 season. By implementing a few significant changes this was reduced to 15% in 2020/21.

Join us at 11am https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86273812669 or catch the recording on FaceBook live or You Tube later on in the week.

PLANNING FOR THE MONTH AHEAD:

• Filling the silage bunker
• Planting crops

Cheers from Jo & Tom