Dairy farmers sick of rain
Dairy farmers are sick of the rain despite rising soil temperatures which should provide them with more pasture growth now.
Other farmers told about 25 people attending a Tokomaru/ Linton discussion group in Manawatu¯ that they were short of feed and more rain and cold weather during the weekend had not helped. The meeting was also attended by a handful of bankers, Dairynz’s consultant Scott Cameron and rural professionals.
After a fine period of two weeks which had lifted their spirits, they could have done with a little rain.
However, they got more than they bargained for with days of wet weather region-wide.
‘‘The ground temperature is 14 degrees Celsius in the sand country, and probably about 12 degrees on these heavier soils. But the pasture is growing and milk production is on a par with last year for most of us,’’ farmer Callum Bates said.
Phil Manderson said the wet winter and early spring had resulted in farmers using supplements to keep condition on cows and them milking well.
‘‘Mostly hay and baleage were the things people fed out to cows.’’
He was milking a mainly friesian herd once-a day, after moving from a twice-a day system last year but was trying out other breeds
Most farmers said they were producing between 1.6 to 2.3 kilograms of milk solids per cow each day depending on their pasture and paddock rotation.
Manderson said his pasture cover was good, and cows looked well.
‘‘We are on once-a-day milking this season, so their health should be good. There was hardly any pugging [tramping by cows, so paddocks are muddy and damaged] ] during winter, so pasture is fine.’’
Brian Underwood said he was feeding about three kilograms of palm kernel (PKE) a day to twicea-day milking cows because of the wet conditions, while cows milked once-a-day, got no extra PKE and relied on pasture.
‘‘During the winter, it was so wet. I got up to 6kg of PKE to the cows.’’
He said cows had no trouble at all at calving time.
‘‘I would have calved two heifers out of 60, and I had to calve one cow. It was better than normal when it came to calving and milk fever [metabolic issues].’’
Other farmers agreed with him and they put this down to cows being at better body condition scores than usual.
Manderson said conditions on his farm near Palmerston North as ‘‘near perfect’’.
But the farm had already recorded 800 millimetres of rain, and it’s annual total was about 950mm, he said.
Other farmers had also received most of their annual rainfall.
‘‘If it averages out, we could face a dry period later this year,’’ Manderson said.
Dairynz trainee consultant Anna Arends, who took the discussion group, said the number of cows still to calve was between 12 and 18 per cent.
She said peak milk production happened about four to six weeks after calving, with peak feed intake 7-10 weeks after calving.
‘‘Some cows are nearing peak intakes now, and others have only just calved. The average intake of the herd is most likely 15 kilograms of dry matter a cow .’’
‘‘The cows’ hormones are what drives intake. Extra feed offered will be wasted as you cannot make the cows eat more.’’
She said peak milk production was four to six weeks after calving on a cow basis, but was probably about a month away on a herd basis.