Grass growth rate fell back even further from the 30kg per day of the previous week to 13kg per day for the last measurement. Some parts of Kilkenny, South Tipperary, West Waterford are still in this very poor growth phase.
Rain in the last two to three days should improve growth in the next seven days but it’s all coming from a very low base. Farms in that are still in these drought stricken areas just need plenty of time and rain to get grass moving again.
David said the last measurement showed growth is down to 13kg per day, so on the farm he has 145kg per cow or 385kg of an average farm cover. He said there’s five to seven paddocks with a grazeable cover over 800kg and the remainder are pretty bare (0-300kg).
The herd have been held up with 4kg nuts, 3kg pulp, 0.75kg distillers & 1kg silage DM along with an allocation of 7 to 8kg of grass per day.
Thoughts are still turning to winter feed as the first cut silage pit is continuing to reduce in size. Some options include buying grass on the stem with a view to harvesting six to seven bales to acre in late September.
Glanbia continue to import alfalfa in containers from overseas and with the recently announced Department subsidy on transport it could be a forage source.
Some Teagasc advisers sent samples for analysis to Hillsborough – the quality is poorish (very little leaf), some results filtering through show digestibility between 55 and 63 DMD.
Alfalfa
I’m told the alfalfa bales are costing €285/t DM but if the Department subsidy comes through it will cost about €220/tDM. So it’s not cheap but price is only part of the issue at the moment.
For the last two weeks while the diet was mostly grazed grass and nuts the protein held up at 3.92% (3.94% last week).
The last milk test (23 Aug) shows a result of about 16 to 17kg per cow at 3.92% protein, 4.75% fat which is down from 4.84%, so that is essentially still around 1.5kg MS/cow. Cell count is at 143 SCC, 7 TBC and 4.77% lactose.
Dempsey at Large: €150,000 cash loss with 300 cows
Greenfield: growing feed is a priority