noted, so even if consider 65% additional to our calculation aprx Rs 300 per day cost per cow irrespective of its yield.,
So in that condition how a hydrophones fodder cultivation can be useful ? does it increase cost too much.
so can we conclude that in reality commercial diary farm is a big challenge and risk
better we say diary farming should-be done only as a part of one activity in intergted farming and maximum feed inputs for diary should be generated our own.
Your guidance pls. my reason to insist for such detailed study and evaluation that several enthusiastic who gets handsome income in existing job/business, out of frustration tries and jump in to various farm activities most of aspirantās are on excitement of numbers given by various consultants. and teh reality is differ,
so based on various discussion, Farming either agi or diary or any type of livestock should be done only with sufficient cash flow/back up support and without much anticipation of income., it is an activity of passion and self satisfaction with all of its risks
noted, so even if consider 65% additional to our calculation aprx Rs 300 per day cost per cow irrespective of its yield.,
ā¦not verymuch true. the moment yield i.e. milk yield is more the expenditure especially the feeding quantity and cost also increases proportionately to certain level.That is why the good breed animals i.e. more pedigree animals is very essential in a commercial dairy farm. A thumb rule to start to see success in a commercial dairy farm minimum we should achieve 15 ltrs/day an average on total animal strength of the dairy farm.(which includes all i.e. milking and non milking cows,heiferes and calves). This the place we should understand and balance lots of dynamics to maintain and manage the animals. It will not be so easy and not possible to maintain all of a sudden to get such animals from open market at lactation time and achieve the results. It needs lots ā¦lots of practices, experiences, commitments, patience, dedications, seriousness in developing and managing such animals from the inception of selection of the semen, itself. Hope you will understand the deepness of this talk and it will not come as any academic degrees in shortwhile, since itās a nature related activity you have to go along with that with your ā¦all as we said above, successively.
So in that condition how a hydrophones fodder cultivation can be useful ? does it increase cost too muchā¦
Hydroponic fodder growing is a one of alternate solution as a immediate remedy in crisis and survivality situations management to save your long term plan of farm activity, the moment you are comfort in getting any cheaper alternatives you should be catching/adopting to that. you canāt leave up your all efforts for the sake of some un-anticipated situations. In animal farming that to a dairy farmer having a strong breeding policy canāt compromise on any situation. we have to learn surviving tactics in great risk time, it is also one of the achievement in farming.
so can we conclude that in reality commercial diary farm is a big challenge and riskDefinetly, thatās why since beginning of this article pressing we should be able to ready to take it as a profession rather thinking it as a challenge.
better we say diary farming should-be done only as a part of one activity in intergted farming and maximum feed inputs for diary should be generated our own.It will workout in a very great way. If, it is not possible to that full extent atleast you complete it the integrated dairy farm by coverting all product and bi-products to valuable marketing products. i.e good breeding cows sale,milk products,organic manure products etc.,
Your guidance pls. my reason to insist for such detailed study and evaluation that several enthusiastic who gets handsome income in existing job/business, out of frustration tries and jump in to various farm activities most of aspirantās are on excitement of numbers given by various consultants. and teh reality is differ, you are very very much true and we too acknowledge the same. Infact, believe us ,we too also got into this dairy farming in same wayā¦but , to-day we are standing for it irrespective of our failures,success,profit and lossesā¦ to takeout all myths ,eyewashing,cheatings,brainwashes in this activity.
so based on various discussion, Farming either agi or diary or any type of livestock should be done only with sufficient cash flow/back up support and without much anticipation of income., it is an activity of passion and self satisfaction with all of its risks.not exactly. Itās a long term plan and efforts if you can sustain,experience and achieve it by going along with the nature with professional understandings and patience without greedy, surely the final pure satisfied happy smile and frustration free life will be yoursā¦after seeing the depended community ,animals as well as nature you are served.
At the current price, the hydro-fodder is expensive. But when the grains price drops in season, that is during harvest, maize grain is available for Rs. 9-10 per kg. That time, this is a very good alternative to your dry fodder.
A combination of silage, hydroponic grass and some small quantity of oil cake is enough to maintain the cow. Since silage and hydroponic both involves minimum labour, it should be considered seriously. And it is most nutritious compared to napier, CO3, CO4 etc.
Dear Nikhil, excuse with you,
since the clarifications you are asked through PM, to us were good and commonly applicable to all. Hence, we are answering the same through this forum.
As I said in my post on Farmnest, some inputs required below.
We have also done some work on developing home based hydroponic fodder system.
Some places that we got stuck.
Temp and humidity requirements - We are doing in normal room which we have insulated from outside, and also have air cooler for increasing humidity and reducing temp. This is not working as much as we hoped. Can you share how it is done in the system that you have?.. we are not experimenting all these since we are not capable enough to manufacture the same. However, ā¦ humidity and temperature are the main criteriaās tobe maintained technically in hydroponics. . In our machine itās PLC operated electronic consealed box is fixed to equipment ā¦they say that is only the heart and brain part of the machine. During installation since the temperature was not set properly and hence some portion of the equipment the seed growth was not proper and to rectify the same the company peson is arriving in next two days.
Seed gets spoilt very fast, mold and fungus growth. Is there any treatment to the seed?..Obviously. Thatās why all the parameterās inside the chamber is very very crucial to avoid all these problem. Any minor lapses leads to all these causes. Absolutely no treatment is required. seeds tobe stimulate technically to grow in such a way with water,temp.,and humidity and little artificial light at end of out. In our system their is no any treatments to seed.3. How much yield you are getting, we got 1:6 yield in 8 days, can you tell me your results? ā¦If well maintained all the factors 1: 8 or 8.5 is easily achievable.
Are cows eating it properly? How long it took to adjust?..trust us when we ordered our machine we bought the around 250kgs of hydroponic samples from company place i.e. around 700km in our car and the moment got down from the car and fed to our animals they joyfully completed in matter of minutes.
Any water treatment to check pH or EC/TDS? Not realy necessary. it should be free of physical and dirt particles. But,If water is softened through softner, the results will be excellent as well as your equipment life and maintainance will be very good.
Please let me know if possible how you are handling the above issuesā¦Hope you got clarified about theses issues. you can keep writing for any further clarifications and informations to share.
I will take some snaps of our system and send it to youā¦please do that so it will help us to understand your efforts and troubles.
I appreciate you coming out openly with answers on the system I.e.forumā¦Trueā¦we believeā¦thatā¦, peoples who stand/committed to put extra-ordinary efforts to cause for results never shy to share the experiences openly to initiate to understand others and to correct our path ourselves to move forward.
Thanks
Nikhil
9880991531
Thanks and regards,
kasturiraju.
Dear Mathew,
Please refer the below file and we hope most of your quiries will be answered.
all the best,
kasturiraju.[quote=rmathewsin]
Could you pls guide more on how to make sillage.
[/quote] fodder-bible.pdf (778 KB)
Please provide contact details of the ISUZU bio gas generator dealer. Or the company you bought it from.
You have mentioned that you have a 20 cubic meter bio gas plant. Please let me know approximate amount of input given to the plant everyday.
I have a 25 cubic meter gobar gas plant. I plan to feed cow dung of 8 cows everyday (approximately 160-180 Kgs of cow dung , plus equal qty of water). if I install a 15 KVA generator, how long do you think it will run per day. as of now, I am thinking of installing a 7.5KVA generator, so that the generator can run longer in a dayā¦
You can communicate to Mr. Sushanth sarkar on +919831028308 for bio-gas generator. He is the head of Marketing.
At present, we have 100 animals. Including calves,heifers as well as cows. From that around 400-450 kgs we are feeding to digester.
As per our experiences, you may required around 500kgs of cow dung to get aprox. 25 cum bio-gas/day. If u are not using the produced bio-gas for any other purpose like cooking etc., the same gas will be sufficient to run the 15 kva genset for around 4 hours with 12KW full load connecting.
Apart from all these matters, one thing you have to keep in mind, In India, still there is no very much flexible choices to select the engine capacity and bio-gas purification systems, storage systems. The above company manufactures
from 12.5 kva genset and above capacity only.
If u need any further clarifications, u can feel free to communicate /write to us.
I have started a Dairy farm near Kasaragod, Kerala. it is nearly 4 months nowā¦i have 15 cows , all these are new cows bought from Puttur, Karnataka. Sharing my experiences so far.
My Focus is to bring the farm to a steady state in this year, I am not looking at financial aspects now. I visited few nearby farms, looking at their farms, I feel my approach is correct.
My farm is in 3 acres. Napier grass is grown in 2.5 acres. 0.5 acres is used for the Shed, a small house and for the open area
Napier grass did not come up well in the beginning, once we started putting slurry, grass has come up very well.
The complete setup is - a 5000 sq ft shed that can house 60 cows. The shed has 3 rooms - one for concentrate feeds, another room for milking equipment/medicines/inverter and a free room. Milking machine is installed. Chaff cutter is used to cut the Napier grass. Cow dung goes into gobar gas plant (25 cubic meter). output of gobar gas plant goes to slurry tank (65000 litres capacity). Water from shed goes to slurry tank. Slurry is pumped out of slurry tank and sprayed on the grass field through a large sprinkler. a 5HP pump operates on a borewell to fill a 60000 litre water tank. Micro sprinklers are setup throughout the grass field for watering the grass plants.
We feed approx. 18 Kgs of green grass everyday, this is fed in 3 parts - once in the morning, once at 11am and once in the evening
We feed 0.5 Kg (per litre milk production) + 3 Kg (body maint) of concentrate feed everyday. This is fed in two parts (after milking in the morning and afternoon). The concentrate feed is a mixture of Kerala feeds + Wheat bhoosa + Corn powder (fine) + ground nut husk. The cost comes to around Rs. 21 per Kg.
We are trying to grow Azola. We have not been successful so far. Azola is a sensitive algae. It becomes orange/brown color and dies.
We give Phytocal plus (calcium supplement) and Agrimin Forte (Mineral mix). We are directly buying these from the dealer where the cost is 15% lower than the MRP.
Iodine solution post milking teat dipping is done, we use Dipal solution.
Rubber mats are used
Lessons learnt so far -
Financials do not look good so far
Tough to contain Mastitis
Flooring of the Shed is very important. My shed flooring is not done correctly. I liked the design of shed constructed by Kasturiraju.
To be done -
a. Sell Cow dung - Planning to sell some of the cow dung. The storage/loading/unloading of cow dung is a challenge that I see in other farms. Thinking of keeping one or two hydraulic tractor trailers and loading these with cow dung everyday. this will take away the loading /unloading problem. Any other suggestions ?
b. Pressure wash for cleaning the shed - Water usage is very high in the farm. Thinking of introducing pressure wash for cleaning the shed. Any suggestion on the pressure of the washer that I should buy (100 Bar / 135 Bar/ 150 Bar) ?
c. Water bowls - We feed water through buckets. Cows simply play with the buckets and topple them. Thinking of installing water bowls. Any thoughts ?
Bio gas generator - Bio gas plant is generating a lot of gas. Need to install a bio gas generator.
Agitator for the slurry tank - Need to install a motor driven agitator to mix the slurry tank.
You are absolutely right on the bio gas generator sizes. Even I have been searching for lower capacity generators, couldnāt find. Today, I came across this website (ascentbioenergy.com/genset_specification.php). they are talking about 5KVA/7.5KVA bio gas generators. I have written to them ā¦let us see.
I have started a Dairy farm near Kasaragod, Kerala. it is nearly 4 months nowā¦i have 15 cows , all these are new cows bought from Puttur, Karnataka. Sharing my experiences so farā¦good and most welcome.
My Focus is to bring the farm to a steady state in this year, I am not looking at financial aspects now. I visited few nearby farms, looking at their farms, I feel my approach is correctā¦yes. you are right. make steady of the farm is quite challenge and one should have very long term vision as well as plan. Always keep one thing in mind, we are dealing with nature and living animals, but not with machines or robots.
My farm is in 3 acres. Napier grass is grown in 2.5 acres. 0.5 acres is used for the Shed, a small house and for the open areaā¦gud ok,no problem.
Napier grass did not come up well in the beginning, once we started putting slurry, grass has come up very wellā¦ok.
The complete setup is - a 5000 sq ft shed that can house 60 cows. The shed has 3 rooms - one for concentrate feeds, another room for milking equipment/medicines/inverter and a free room. Milking machine is installed. Chaff cutter is used to cut the Napier grass. Cow dung goes into gobar gas plant (25 cubic meter). output of gobar gas plant goes to slurry tank (65000 litres capacity). Water from shed goes to slurry tank. Slurry is pumped out of slurry tank and sprayed on the grass field through a large sprinkler. a 5HP pump operates on a borewell to fill a 60000 litre water tank. Micro sprinklers are setup throughout the grass field for watering the grass plantsā¦okā¦
We feed approx. 18 Kgs of green grass everyday, this is fed in 3 parts - once in the morning, once at 11am and once in the eveningā¦we have not understood this. please once again look into this and go through lots of discussion held on this matter along with referring the attachment of fodder bible. you have to calculate/understand the green fodder and dry fodder feeding quantities properly, what we feel.
We feed 0.5 Kg (per litre milk production) + 3 Kg (body maint) of concentrate feed everyday. This is fed in two parts (after milking in the morning and afternoon). The concentrate feed is a mixture of Kerala feeds + Wheat bhoosa + Corn powder (fine) + ground nut husk. The cost comes to around Rs. 21 per Kg.same as we mentioned in sl.no.5
We are trying to grow Azola. We have not been successful so far. Azola is a sensitive algae. It becomes orange/brown color and dies. clean the pots/ponds , see that under the shade net you can grow the same with little efforts and practices.
We give Phytocal plus (calcium supplement) and Agrimin Forte (Mineral mix). We are directly buying these from the dealer where the cost is 15% lower than the MRP.ok. you can refine/note the usage dosages to feed the animal with experienced vet, depending on the stage and condition of the animal.
Iodine solution post milking teat dipping is done, we use Dipal solution.ok. after milking see that 25-30 minutes animal should not lay down on the floor to avoid mastitis attack
Rubber mats are used okā¦proper cleaning or hygienic shall be maintained with proper cleaning under the mats.
Lessons learnt so far -
Financials do not look good so farā¦With lots of plan to steady the farm, breeding policies take time to yield the same. may be you can count 1000 days.
Tough to contain Mastitisā¦mastitis is the toughest hurdle in dairy farming even we have to live with that. you can avoid the some %age by maintaining the nutritious feed, hygienic condition. Balance %age of mastitis shall be attend instantly and can be solved immediately.
Flooring of the Shed is very important. My shed flooring is not done correctly. I liked the design of shed constructed by Kasturirajuā¦thanks. Apart from that you have lots of options and ways too.
To be done -
a. Sell Cow dung - Planning to sell some of the cow dung. The storage/loading/unloading of cow dung is a challenge that I see in other farms. Thinking of keeping one or two hydraulic tractor trailers and loading these with cow dung everyday. this will take away the loading /unloading problem. Any other suggestions ?.. you can try with small tiller.
b. Pressure wash for cleaning the shed - Water usage is very high in the farm. Thinking of introducing pressure wash for cleaning the shed. Any suggestion on the pressure of the washer that I should buy (100 Bar / 135 Bar/ 150 Bar) ?..please donāt go with such high pressure. normal vehicle pressure cleaning equipment is sufficient along various nozzles applicable to floor as well as for animals.
c. Water bowls - We feed water through buckets. Cows simply play with the buckets and topple them. Thinking of installing water bowls. Any thoughts ?..do the same while doing the floor re-work. for open area you can have a floor level common tank is ok. But, water too plays very crucial role in milk yield.
Bio gas generator - Bio gas plant is generating a lot of gas. Need to install a bio gas generator.
Agitator for the slurry tank - Need to install a motor driven agitator to mix the slurry tankā¦simple blades mounted vertical shaft can be connected to suitable gear box.]
Grow Lucerne, Hedge Lucerne and Subabul. ok. carry on.
More later !!..practice,learn,experience,improve and keep on growing.
In one of the earlier posts, you had mentioned that - "(4) Cubicles for cows - please let me know how you got these done. in Kasaragod-Mangalore area, there is no one who can bend the GI pipes !.- Frankly, speaking if you can slightly comprmise the finishing Rs.2,200-00 each will cost. for perfect one i.e. machine bending one Rs.3,500-00 each plus transportation from bangalore,fixing it at your place to be get it done from your end (the cost is only of barricade, verticle post ,horizontal bar pipe all excluded. "
Could you please send pictures of Rs.2200 & Rs. 3500 cow cubicles, if available ? . Also, the contact details of the manufacturer of these cubicles.
We agree with you about the usage of bends and do the same as seen in link. But, see the photograph of the bend pipe fixing to the verticle post. It is not going to touch the floor of the shed as well as it will be a comfort to the animals in all way. Also, geting rust problem will not be their.
Costwise, The quantity of material is same for the hanging support. only bending charges will be bit costly. you can fix up and forget and no maintenance. Itās our personal experiences gained after visited various farms of such.
Infact, machine bending barricades for us was procured from punjab. Now, our sister organisation is developed locally (in bangalore) almost nearer quality of the same. Actualy how many of you are looking for and when ?.Based on that you can communicate to them directly on margsolutions99@gmail.com .
Thank you Kasturiraju. I will contact Magic solutions for cow cubicle loops.
EM (Efficient Microorganism) and PENERGETIC :
When i was reading in the internet, i hit upon āPENERGETICā and EM-1. As per internet articles, there are few variations of PENERGETIC and EM-1, that can be used in Slurry tank operations and also to feed cows.
i have done lot of reading on this in the internetā¦i would like to know practical experience of farmers who have used this or know this product. is this being used by farmers ? does this product work as promised ?
Again , it is also one kind of nature friendly/ saving interests. Infact, all human beings should adopt this compulsorily in their life without fail, to save the nature for future generation as well as to respect the nature like organic farming, water harvesting, non-polluting materials usage type of most important activities etc.,
If u are really interested, few of peoples are realy dedicated their life to save the nature as well as they are initiating the peoples to think and adopt the same by conducting training workshops in EM technology twice in a year.
we have attended the same and because of various reasons, we have not yet adopted the same till date in our farm. But, surely to save the nature, we will adopt the same in coming days without fail.
You can attend their training workshop as well as feel the spirituality of that placeā¦it is very nice. you can go with like minded people in group or family it will be very joyful and meaningful.
For further details you can directly co-ordinate or communicate with following address:
ā Dr. Lucas Dengel
Executive
EcoPro
Aurosarjan Complex, Auroshilpam
Auroville - 605 101
Tamil Nadu, India
web: www.ecopro.in
tel.: 0091-(0)413-2622469 / -2906482all the best.
The transaction was happened three years back with one Singh near Patiala, Punjab. Since we lost our old mobile, the no. is also lost and donāt have any further detail. That to he was very greedy and insisted for cash payment only in person and asked to arrange our own transportation for the barricades.
we donāt feel small quantity orders need not to go such a distance and not worth it.
I think the concerned person of the offer said other local organisation may be gone out of station and surely you will get back his reply for your mailā¦the contact person is mr. gopi and his contact no. is 9880187740.