Growth slips as temperature bites

This week, the growth rate dropped to 27kg per day, closer to more seasonal norms. As the colder weather bites this weekend, it is likely to reduce slightly further.

Grass growth rates have been hovering around the 50kg per day mark for the last while and with demand closer to 30kg per day the farm has continued to build grass cover.

Stocking rate is purposefully relatively low at 2.35 LU/ha and that means with the farm cover at 954kg there is 406kg of grass available per livestock unit.

That cover is probably at the higher end of where you want it. It’s a good complaint when silage stocks are on the low side.

Spring

However, now all thoughts are turning to February grass and as it stands this week about 50% of the farm is closed. Paddocks both far away and near the farmyard have been closed.

The plan is to graze a few paddocks with lighter covers to get a higher percentage of the farm grazed before early November.

The message I got from David and Abigail this week is keeping all the far away paddocks until the end of the last rotation is not ideal as it means the cows have to walk longer distances when the weather is potentially much wetter which would potentially increase lameness.

It is good to have some paddocks close to the parlour closed last as they will have lighter covers on them for the freshly calved cows next spring in the first few days after calving.

Strip wire

The strip wire is now in use as pre-grazing covers have increased and it’s important to get the pre-residual grazed out well (4cm), especially when the weather is dry. Graze-out on one of the paddocks with a heavy cover was difficult but the plan maybe is to come back in to try and clean out better.

The last milk test (26 Oct) shows a result of about 1.55kg of milk solids per cow for the 278 milking cows (16kg per cow at 4.42% protein, 5.24% fat). Cell count is at 139 SCC, 8 TBC and 4.71% lactose.

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Great grazing down in Greenfield