Gippsland - How Now Gippy Cow
December 2010 Edition
GippsDairy Focus Farms
Summer feeding ideas from the Focus Farms
The Focus Farm Project has six dairy farms in a range of districts across the Gippsland Region.
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The following brief reports provide an insight into their summer management thoughts. Like all farms these may change if circumstances vary. A common thread is that feeding plans are not completely fixed, two key factors are grain price/quality, plus "what will the summer rainfall pattern be like".
Middle Tarwin Focus Farm
Rod and Lyndell Cope and staff Dianne and Phil always look forward to summer. Rod considers much of the really hard work for the lactation is over and it's time to make the farm program fit some relaxation activities.
They will be milking 410 cows through to February then drying off 40 autumn (April) calvers. Production normally reaches a plateau then drops off from the end of December. This year they want to significantly reduce the rate of decline in the spring calvers during January and February.
There is a 175ha grazing area in 68 paddocks. This will give a 34 day rotation and approximately 5ha grazing/24 hours.
Grain feeding will comprise up to 8kg (as fed), depending on milk production, pasture available and grain price.
They have budgeted 3.5 bales of silage per cow working with an average bale weight of 625kg (wet weight). Feed testing of silage is to be done.
There will also be 5ha of millet which will be grazed in the paddock rotation. It will receive dairy effluent after grazing. This crop area is in a renovation program because it contains dense barley grass.
Willowgrove Focus Farm
Mick and Paula Hughes will be milking 290-300 cows on their 85ha pasture area - a stocking rate of 3.5 cows/ha.
The grazing rotation is likely to be 2ha/day plus 1ha/night, ie 3ha/24 hours. In the past they have gone to 2ha/24 hours for short periods in summer. Over summer the ryegrass leaf appearance rate will be closely monitored.
Supplementary feeding will be 5-6kgDM/day grain plus 5kgDM/day pasture silage.
Mick is hoping not to start feeding silage before New Year's Day. Their farm is one of the first to dry off in the district.
There is 6ha of Chicory summer crop. It is likely that this crop will go into the diet to stretch the rotation, ie feeding 2ha/24 hours to take the rotation out three days. There will be no bought in hay for summer feeding.
Foster Focus Farm
Kevin and Helen Jones and family will be milking 380 spring calving cows over summer, up from 360 cows last year.
Grain will be maintained at 8kg/cow (as fed) provided grain prices don't "get out of control" says Kevin.
Most years they start feeding silage by mid January. This summer they hope to hold off until late January.
They have 40ha of sprinkler irrigation. This will form the basis of the night rotation. The cows will get 1.5ha/night (taking into account there are dry gaps between the sprinklers). This will give a 22-23 night rotation.
Carryover cows will go out in mid January if they are not pulling their weight. It will be a matter of making a compromise between milking as many cows as possible to utilise the pasture if summer rains occur.
They usually grow a summer crop of turnips but this year the wet conditions made it impossible to prepare the ground. A late sown summer crop is not an option because Kevin prefers to have all pasture resowing completed by 10 March. Therefore the renovation paddocks will go 'pasture to pasture' to meet the 10 March resowing deadline.
Denison Focus Farm
Ross, Kelly, Graeme and Chris Anderson are milking approximately 450 cows. They will reduce herd numbers down to 300 cows through summer when they start drying off the 150 autumn cows on 12 January.
With irrigated pastures the cows will be stocked at 4 cows/ha. The pastures are dense but the quality of the ryegrass has been variable leading up to summer due to the weather conditions.
Summer feeding on the dairy will be mainly pasture and grain, historically no grain used to be fed on the farm.
Overall fodder reserves are good. They were able to get a couple of silage cuts on the nearby dry country block, plus some hay. Replacement heifers will be on the dry country this summer.
The 2011 autumn calving group will comprise the 150 cows plus 40 heifers.
Nar Nar Goon
Michael and Ancret Shipton have a split calving pattern including 30 cows calving each month from January to April, plus 35 heifers to calve across that period. The remainder of their herd calves August-October.
Provided wheat prices don't rise, they plan to keep the grain feeding at the budgeted 2.5t/cow. If wheat price does rise or quality falls they will reduce the grain and feed potato mash with silage. Michael reports there is close to 400tDM of good quality pasture silage available. This will be feed tested.
Waterlogged paddocks resulted in very late spraying to remove the annual ryegrass prior to cropping. It is likely to go into a late summer crop of Millet and Pasja, however holding it over without cropping and preparing the ground for an early autumn pasture sowing is also an acceptable option.
One hundred tDM of 'Gippsland' pasture hay has been carried over in a shed for dry cows and calving down etc.
Five hectares of oats sown this year for hay became badly rust damaged and had to be grazed. Fortunately there is 8ha of good ryegrass hay on the lease to bale.
Maffra Focus Farm
Wayne and Dana Saunders and son Jared will be milking 400 cows this summer (calved from 1 August).
This year they have an additional 12ha of pasture in the rotation added to that the pastures on the remainder of the farm are more productive now.
The cows will get 3kg/day (as fed) pellets or grain mix (no additives). The remainder of their diet will come from pasture. There are no summer crops and no hay will be purchased.
Silage has been conserved, however this will be held over to start feeding as late as possible ie late March-early April.
The cows will graze 4ha/24 hours on a 23 day rotation during January. The rotation will "sneak out" in February while they start to get some days grazings over the road. In March they plan to be on a 30 day rotation.
They have both flood and centre pivot irrigation. In January they plan to irrigate every seven days applying the equivalent of 25mm/week. In February the irrigation will extend out to a 10 day rotation and by mid March they plan to be irrigating on a 14 day rotation.
Fertiliser topdressing will continue with a purchase of 6-7t per month budgeted. This will progressively be applied to sections of the farm. This is a blend of Urea plus Potash (MOP)
The Focus Farm Project is an initiative of GippsDairy that receives funding from the Gardiner Foundation, Dairy Australia and GippsDairy.
For more information about the Focus Farm project contact: John Gallienne Mob 0407 863 493.
