Dairy Heifer Grazing

On the 1st May, saw our weaner dairy heifers change to the next grazing contract.  They will remain on our farm for the next year till 30th April, and will go to the bull in October.

As part of the change over, we invited the owner to come and weigh the heifers with us.  The purpose of this was that he could see what each animal weighed, look at their condition, see where they had been grazing and see their residuals.  As well, it gave us a great opportunity to sit down and talk about the new contract which had been drafted prior to this.  Things we discussed is expectation of animal health programme, bull management, weight targets, and of course price.  Over a coffee and free and frank discussion, we hope that we have come to a win:win contract.  Whilst it is hoped that we never have to challenge the contract, we have had a discussion about our expectations.

The Kiwi cross heifers, with a strong jersey influence, were probably 10 kg behind our personal expected target (would have been nice to do closer to 100 kg average weight gain).  Our overall average was 208 kg (target Xbred 200 kg or Jersey 180 kg).  We have set ourselves are target of 300 kg for going to the bull in October (or a minimum of 280 kg), and 400 kg to go home 30th April.

Mob of heifers

Alice and the heifers getting to know each other

The heifers have had another weigh. Being fed on an all grass system, the heifers were weighed again this last week.  We were a little disappointed with 227 kg average, with liveweight gain only 0.25 kg/hd/day.  Probably a bit of silage added to the diet to provide some roughage would have helped as the dry matter content of the grass is fairly low at present.  The predicted average fro Xbred at this time 230 kg or Jersey 204 kg.  Based on this we are not far off the pace.  We have good cover in front so will be interesting to see what they will be on next weigh. 

The interesting  point is that without weighing, and purely observing it would be hard to predict the weight of these animals, as often the one you would presume to be heavier is not.

We've also had 100 cows for 6 weeks.  They arrived 28th May in good condition and ready to eat grass. 

Alice counting the cows off the truck

 We weighed the cows a day after they arrived, and we provide a list of weights to the owners.  A day before they go home, we weighed them again and provide comparative data to the owners.  The cows put on 0.86 kg/hd/day whilst here, with a portion of that weight being foetal.  We had one cow that slipped early on and she went home early.  The rest went home on the 9th July.

Cows grazing on the last day before going home

Last supper!

Heading for the trucks

Rain rain

Will I tipped out 43 mls this morning and it hasn't stop raining since.  Mal has gone bush and Alice and I are in charge.  There is heaps of surface water about and all the rivers are up.

The school bus couldn't get to school via the normal bus route as Waimai Valley flooded out.  School bus to Waignaro also restricted.

Creek nearly overflowing crossings

Alice and I shifted the heifers this morning, leaving a little bit of mud in the gateways.  The lane crossing is flooded and the waterfall pretty explosive.  Our creek on the second block well and truly up and nearly over three crossings. 




Alice and I decided to check out more of Woodleigh Road and the creek was about a foot from tipping over at 9am.

Woodleigh Road at 9am

After we had done our chores, it was off to Mainly Music.  A good turnout with mums trying to get the kids to burn off some energy whilst being inside.  The road was still in good shape coming home. 

Alice togged up and helping test depth of puddles!

The rain has eased a bit this afternoon, but as writing this it is coming down again.  Only about another 15mls in the gauge, but the ground is already wet so most of it is flowing off. 

Hopefully not too much more of this ... our lambs are due now, so I hope most are sensible and stay inside until fine weather again!

Waiting for lambing ...

Since the end of May we have had a bit of sheep work.  That started by shearing the terminal ewes (B Flock) on the 30th May.  This was followed by scanning on 1st June (http://ultra-scan.co.nz/Default.aspx).  This flock is our old ewes and poorer type ewes that we mate to a suffolk ram.  All these lambs will be sold.  Our scanning for these ewes were up 10% but still not flash as it is still pretty much a development flock.

Sam Welch hard at work

The presser (from Canada) and the pile of wool

The terminals after being shorn

 Next was the Mixed Age Ewes (MA) which were shorn on 2nd and 3rd June and scanned on 5th June.  Pretty happy with the way the ewes scanned with overall 163%, with the older ewes doing 171%.  Our two-tooths were a bit disappointing but overall pleased.  The average condition score at scanning was 3.8 BCS.


MA Ewes just before clean/dirtying and bringing only the dirty ones home for crutching

2-tooths coming home for shearing

The scanning equipment

Raewyn hard at work (Alice is the photographer)

All our dry ewes were culled, with a small select few (22) two-tooths were kept.  From next year onwards this policy will cease and anything empty at scanning two-tooth and older will be culled.

Next was the shearing of hoggets 25th June and shearing 27th June.  Previously we had only ever mated a small portion of our hoggets, and this year all 475 went to the ram.  Although their weights were up this year, we still targeted 50% of the hoggets being in lamb.  Unfortunately we acheived 47% but 66% predicted lambing overall.

Bringing the hoggets home

All these hoggets are tagged with EID and will be monitored through Farm IQ.  We have tried to load the scanning, weight and BCS against the hoggets, but unfortunately we haven't been quite able to get our Prattley/Tru Test set up to work properly and still awaiting support from the techno people to sort this out.

The equipment arrives!

Using the Prattley 3-way drafter and Tru-test equipment

In the last 10 days we have been working to vaccinate all the ewes and set stock.  After shearing we hoped to lice treat all the ewes but this has been severley hindered by the wet weather.  With more recent stable weather we were able to catch up on this, plus 5 in 1 (clostridial disease) and Cydectin LA.  Last year we had great success from good ewe condition, reduced dags and good weaning weights that we have decided, at least in the interim that we can't afford to not do this.

2-tooths waiting to be vaccinated and drafted

All our flock has been split into singles and multiples and set stock accordingly. Lambing is due to start 1st August.  To date we had one lamb - single via a four-tooth came in with the mob on 9th July, and late 19th July another single was born.  Ewes are in good condition and all have good covers underfoot.

Our first lamb!

We have a shed!

Apologies in getting things loaded for the blogspot ... we have been busy and lots to tell.

Firstly, our shed is now finished!  And we have been using it but it is not in final state quite yet - we have some guttering to add, yards to modify and lighting to put in.

There was a moment from the last blog and the middle of May when the shed was growing slowly.  This was when lots of beams and bracing were going in which made it slow to watch.  Then we encountered a bit of wind and rain which has slowed progress down.

We did a long weekend getting the shed going, especially with the thought that crutching was due to begin and first of the shearing on 30th May.  Once the tin went on the sides, it started to look like a shed. 

Mark pouring the first hole

The first of the poles being concreted into place

Mal waiting for his wheelbarrow full of concrete

Concrete mixer man

End rafters and outside beams in place

End rafters and outside beams in place

 

Putting the rafters in place

All the rafters in place

All the rafters in place

All the rafters and beams in place finally!

The frist wall going up - everyone inspecting and double checking!

The easterly wall from the outside

The easterly wall from the inside

Rafters and beams in place, with teh end and side all in tin

The westerly side wall going into place

The westerly side wall

The westerly side wall

The first of the roof going on

View from the top

And again

In the last days of finishing the shed, unfortunately Mark's van had a wee accident.  Late one night there was a large bang.  We later discovered it was the van had travelled down the hill, into a fence and a stump, just missing the water pump in the middle of the paddock!

Inside the shed with roof and sides in place - ready for use

Then we had to load the shed for shearing!

Finally finished (sliding doors cover the doorways at the end)

   

It has been a bit of a team effort, with all of us having some sort of input into getting the shed.  Been great to finally get it finished.  Finishing touches still to go and some slightly remodified yards need to be put in place.

The shed has been used for shearing and scanning of all the ewes and hoggets, it was nice to be out of the weather!