By Martin Williams
26 | Rural Life
LIFE ON TRENITHON
It has been a longer winter than hoped ! All cattle were housed by the end of October last year . Normally we can keep cows out until mid-November and have had them back out grazing in January !
Ground conditions did not allow to extend our grazing any longer although there was plenty of grass covers there . Thankfully , we made plenty of good quality silage last year which the cows have milked well on . Splitting the milking cows in to 2 groups ( fresh calved and back in-calf or Highs & Lows ) works really well although adds a bit more to the workload .
The idea behind it is to give a different ration to each group . Both groups have the same base ration which is made up of 10kgs of wholecrop silage & 28kg of 1st cut grass silage . The highs then get 3kgs of blend per cow ! This is all mixed in the feed wagon which is a big version of a blender and fed in the troughs .
Both groups have the ration topped up with a compound nut fed to yield in the out of parlour feeders . The highs get more due to producing more milk . The Lows do not need as much because they would get too fat once they are back in calf .
It was a good job we extended our slurry pit back in June 2020 as it is now nearing capacity . With the opening of the NVZ regulations on the 31st January and if ground conditions allow , we will start giving the silage ground an application of 4000 gallons per acre or 18,200 L per hectare .
The August drilled grass seeds loved the wet and warm growing conditions , so we had a bunch of our neighbours ’ sheep in to graze them . Sheep are the best animal for this practice being light on their feet . Eating the seeds tight helps get them to tiller out better and helps prevent the grass getting any disease .
The sheep will eat out any annual weeds that would check the grass and eliminates the need to spray . It also makes for a better sward of grass come the spring ready for the cows .
TB testing is the most stressful time for all cattle breeders whether Dairy or Beef , pedigree or commercial !
So , with that in mind we have been busy trying to make cow flow better ahead of our annual bTB test . We have added a new gate post in the yard and fitted recycled plastic boards to the gates . The idea behind these boards is that the cows cannot see out to the sides and look to towards the light at the end of the tunnel and walk forwards of their own free will rather than having to be driven !? This reportedly reduces stress on both the cattle and the handlers !
We let the cows walk through on their own for a few days before we sheeted the gates and then again for a few days after we sheeted them . On the day of the test they walked through with out the normal hassle of cows refusing to walk into the crush & trying to spin around . I can confirm that the new race was a great success !
We also changed the time of day we tested to work with the cows so they came out from being milked and into the race system . This saved them from being moved around as much and kept their routine better !
To top it all off we had a CLEAR test .