The wet weather continues to bite hard, although there is a slight improvement in the forecast over the next few days for much of the country. However, land is still very wet and grazing is very difficult. On the plus side, daylight hours are longer now and there will be good drying if we get the right weather. For cows that are housed full-time, extra meal will need to be fed to reduce the hit in production and the reduction in body condition score. The most amount of meal I would be prepared to feed to spring-calving cows that are housed fully on medium quality silage producing around 1.8kg of milk solids per day is 6kg per day. Any more than this and you risk stomach upsets. Where silage quality is good, then less meal will suffice.
The wet weather continues to bite hard, although there is a slight improvement in the forecast over the next few days for much of the country. However, land is still very wet and grazing is very difficult. On the plus side, daylight hours are longer now and there will be good drying if we get the right weather.
For cows that are housed full-time, extra meal will need to be fed to reduce the hit in production and the reduction in body condition score. The most amount of meal I would be prepared to feed to spring-calving cows that are housed fully on medium quality silage producing around 1.8kg of milk solids per day is 6kg per day. Any more than this and you risk stomach upsets. Where silage quality is good, then less meal will suffice.
With the weather set to improve, there should be opportunities for most farms to resume grazing over the next week. With most farms well behind on target area to be grazed, and with high grass covers on many farms, as much supplement as possible should be removed from the diet when cows do go out. This means that silage should be removed and only 2 or 3kg of meal should be fed at most. It might be hard to contemplate this now considering the ground and weather, but the situation changes quickly so we need to plan ahead for this. I know some farmers are talking about turning out maiden heifers and dry cows too.
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