Clonakilty Agricultural College - Dairy Update May 2022
James Daunt, Clonakility Agricultural College Lecturer gives an update as to what has happened on the dairy enterprise at the college in May 2022. James covers breeding, milk production and gives an update on grassland management and silage.
Breeding Season 2022
We are currently on week 7 of the breeding season. All maiden heifers were synchronised for AI on the 29th April. All got sexed semen and conception rates for the first service was 71%. For any repeats they got a second round of sexed semen and straight after this an Angus bull was let off with the heifers. 98% of the dairy cows have been submitted for AI as of now.
For the first 3 weeks, 30 cows were selected for Beef AI, 40 cows were selected for sexed semen and the rest were given conventional Dairy AI. Conception rate to first service was approximately 60% across all treatments. The remaining 4 cows were scanned and are clean and cycling. For the second 3 weeks of AI, cows were served to high Dairy Beef Index AI bulls and stock bulls are now with cows at the moment.
Milk Production
Cows are producing 23.8 litres/cow/day and milk figures are as follows:
- Butterfat 4.57%
- Protein 3.53%
- Somatic Cell Count 106,000
- Total Bacteria Count 3,000
- Milk solids/cow/day 1.92Kg
Grass Update
- Grass growth was 70Kgs DM/day/Ha
- Demand is now at 69Kgs DM/day/Ha.
- Average farm cover is at 174Kg DM/cow.
Concentrates
Cows are consuming 3Kgs of concentrate at the moment but will be dropped back to 1Kg fairly soon.
Silage
First cut of silage was done on the 29th May and conditions were very good so we expect good silage for this year.
Fertiliser
For fertiliser were are following the cows with a blend of 38-0-0-7S of Protected Urea. We are spreading 21 Units/Acre on the high Nitrogren treatments and 10 units/Acre on the low Nitrogen treatments. 0-10-20 is being spread across the whole platform at the moment as well.
Reseeding
Reseeding took place on the 13th May. The whole of block 8 was reseeded. Paddock 25 was reseeded as well with a mixture of half red clover silage mixture and the other half got half while clover mixture.
More on Clonakilty Agricultural College Farm here