FEEDING AND WORKING CATTLE | Pre calving sort out
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- Опубліковано 4 січ 2024
- Happy new year to you all!
We start the new year off by getting our cattle sorted out ready for calving 2024. We feed and do a few odd jobs before splitting the cattle into different yards, based on their body condition.
Finley also makes a big mistake!
I hope you enjoy!
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Great video, the cows are looking really good. My heart goes out to all you farmers with all this rain ,as if your job is not hard enough already ❤
Thanks Sara. It’s not been very pleasant lately, but we manage. It will equal itself out somewhere down the line. 😊
Great video James Happy new year to all 👌
Thanks Gary, happy new year to you too.
You are very lucky not to have sown winter crops James, it's a disaster. But James in my experience and I make pit silage it is more than sufficient for suckler cows, I do first cut around May 15th weather permitting, it's normally 74dmd and about 14% protein. I feed that to the younger ones also. The second cut is normally cut early July and we feed that to the stores that are going back out to grass. A very simple cost effective way to feed 140 cows. 10:18 10:18 😅
We did sow them actually. Did every acre and ended up with about 15% that looks any good. 🙈 gonna Sheba serious re think before the spring especially with our new SFI subsidy scheme coming in.
My cows get out wintered on stock piled feed as much as possible and also hay which we put out in the summer time when it was made
Don’t un roll either
Next year going to look at taking the net of at sane time or even bale and use not net wrap and leave it where it drops
Some fields we don’t do anything with just graze twice a year as standing crops
We keep playing and keep trying to stop signing checks for anything
Couldn’t agree more about writing the cheques 😂 sounds like a really interesting method. Would love to see/ hear more about it. I think we can drastically reduce overhead costs of wintering cattle, just gotta have the balls to do something different. 🙌🏻
@@baldysfarm think that’s the part having the balls to
I’m hoping we are doing the right thing think it will take a few years to find out fully though
Feeding 100 spring calving suckler cows on hay at the minute. Bale in rounds, store outside just don’t stack on top of each other and they keep fine (even with all this rain). I’m all Angus so they go fat at the slightest sniff of silage.
Ahh thanks Sam. Im guessing you stack them on the round and not on the ends? I am conscious not to fill the sheds with hay and not have room for cows 😂
@@baldysfarm that’s the one on the rounds indeed. You loose maybe an inch even in this weather but it’s fine. We’ve got salt licks in the shed and bolus animals that have grazed chalk land for selenium deficiency.
Ha same problem here, cows make more money than storing bales does 😅
Feeding hay to in calf heifers ad lib . Cows are on hay too . Mainly Sussex cows.
Nice one James have a good weekend thanks again
Thanks Darran. Hope yours has been a good’un. 👍
Great video James. Happy New Year to you and the family. The cows are looking really good as always. Now the rain is horrible really do feel sorry for all the farmers that have there fields drilled but, now under water.
Thanks Kai! Happy new year to you too. The rain has washed everything out as soon as it was drilled. I have about 12 acres of barley out of 80 that was drilled and 12 acres of wheat from 50 🙈 everything else is a complete mud bath.
Happy new year and best wishes for this coming year.
Only thing about hsy is you need hay making weather and somewhere to keep it.😊
Thanks Willy! Happy new year.
Yes that’s very true. It can be hard to come by from time to time as well 😂
Hi James .Happy new year to you and family.Hay is great fed for suckler cows that are in good condition. Been dry fed cows have dry dungs straw bedding last longer. Tricky bit is dry weather to save hay and sheds to store .
Thanks Rauiri. I think we will be okay for storage at the minute. Might struggle when we get more cows but we will have to cross that bridge when we get there!
We use hay until Christmas then good silage after for spring Calving cows
That’s a good idea actually. Gonna have to look into it. 👍 thank you.
I think hay is as good as silage or haylage as long as it is made right. I'm surprised you can store muck on your yard, unless you have drains goung into a slurry storage.
Think I’ll give it a go this year but make some silage too just in case 😂 it’s all got drains around the outside that go to underground tanks. Had the environmental agency out in the autumn and they were happy with it all.
@@baldysfarm what I understand in silage and haylage during the fermentation the sugar in the grass has been turned in to ME. Where in hay the ME is lower and the sugar is higher but the conversation happens in the cows stomach. With higher dry mater the cows will eat less and hay will last longer. That's all I can say I can put a bale of silage, haylage and hay in for the cows and the hay will be eaten first thain the haylage, and silage will be last. I never realised you had so many cattle that's a heck of a lot of work for you and your dad especially calving time with all of them in, we see a fraction of what you have and do. Hats off to you and your dad.
Two quick questions for you. What do buyers look for when you send your beef off? ,do they look for small and stocky or big/stocky. Q2 how many cattle do you have and i mean everything
Depends on your buyer a bit but the main thing they all want is consistency. Butchers will want more fat than your supermarkets will. Once the grading grid is changed (which will happen but not in the near future) then intramuscular fat will be a real money maker.
We have anywhere between 300 and 450 cattle on farm at any one point. Aiming to increase sucklers once things start going more in our favour. Would like to get upwards of 200 sucklers.
@@baldysfarm I have sheep at the moment but I would some sucklers
Good video have you decided what to do with the empty cows and am disappointed we didn't get to see the dexta and scraper in action 🙂
I know! He had finished when I got back with the feeder.
Gonna cull the empty cows out and hopefully replace them with in calf cows. Then should be in a good place to be able to close the herd then and breed all our replacements ourselves. 🤞 as long as everything goes to plan.
@@baldysfarm sounds like a good idea will you try and buy stabilizer cattle or cross bred cows
Hay is not as good as silage depending on how it is made. Cows don’t look so good on hay. If you make it to dry the leaves break off and you lose the best part. To damp it’s gets dusty. You usually have to feed it with concentrate. I don’t known if it’s really a savings unless you mix it with hi quality sillage
I disagree cows love hay and look well on it. They dung firmer and stay cleaner. I'm on 25% hay but if the weather is better this coming year I'd like to be 75% hay. I'm drilling most of the farm to Sam3 herbal lays so be interested to see how that works as hay.
Hmmm… A lot to think about I reckon. I was mainly thinking about savings on wrap and it would be easier to feed out at grass if needed. The quality is my concern.
I think it probably depends on the cows people are running too. Don’t know how the herbal ley will do as hay, makes amazing silage though! I think we’ll be putting a lot of herbal leys in on SFI too this year. Especially given the state of our arable. 🙈
another layer of plastic needed on them bales.
Probably stalks from the forage rye.
Yeh that particular wrap goes a long way but I’m not sure if the bales are better for it.