Flashcards
Practical-spring feed budget
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1What do you need to supplement springers with?-Mg: pasture dusting, water, bolus, drench, silage
-hay
-good quality feed - 2How can spring pasture be managed?1. Use dry cows as lawn mowers to clean up rank pasture
2. As pasture starts to grow faster speed up rotation length
3. start thinking about utilizing grass. make supplements (silage) when demand - 3How can you make silage? what can you use it for?-shut paddock out of rotation for 4-6 weeks
-grow grass to 4000-4500kgDM/ha
-turn into silage
-pit silage better than balage
preferentially feeding cows with low BCS-can eat more because has decreased water content - 4What is an option for when you have a patchy paddock? how do you do it?topping- do 3-4 hours before putting cows on it. Gets it to wilt-> decreased water content -> increased intake of DM or can also top behind cows to clean up
- 5Why plant crops in spring (sep-octob)?Take 3-4 months to establish...only start feeding in December
- 6What happens to too long pasture?Gets trampled -> not eaten-> decreased utilisation
Increased fibre content -> decreased feed intake
Increased dead matter content - 7Why is using cows condition (back fat) for milk production a bad idea?-more susceptible to metabolic disease
-impacts reproduction -> decreased fertility -> decreased days in milk - 8heifers produce 75% the amount of milk as cows, why? what can farmers do?still growing + small udders
milk heifers OAD until christmas to give them a chance to grow - 9What BCS showuld cows and heifers be at mating and calving?mating: 4.5 heifers, 4 cows
calving 5.5 heifers, 5 cows - 10How long does it take for a heifer to pay the farmer back?$1000-1500 to rear a calf to a heifer
1-2 milking seasons- depends on milk price
worth investing in heifers , rearing costs too much just to cull - 11pasture cover is high and needs to be grazed down. How can this be done?-stop feeding supplements so cows graze down further
-can't decrease rotation length to get cows to eat more because means grass in other paddocks will over grow. Need to be increasing rotation length going into spring - 12How would you calculate the demand the supply: -grass growth rate 22kgDM/ha/day -200 milkers (490kg), 70 to calve -119 ha -1.7 kgMS/daymilkers: (main + MS + activity) x200= 4100 MJME
Springers (main + pregnancy) x70= 7420 MJME
total demand= 48420
demand/11ME =4401.8 kgDM/d
/119 Ha= 37 kgDM/ha/d
so demand > supply 37>22 kgDM/ha/d
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- Last cattle exam! Flashcards on Practical-spring feed budget, created by Hayley Pfeffer on 05/11/2016.
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- Hayley Pfeffer
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