Farmer writes: let the grazing games begin 13 June 2016 Premium

We have waited for weeks to let out animals, or if they are out, to keep them fed and happy. Each morning we felt the cold air on our face, looked fearfully at our diminishing pile of bales and knew there wouldn’t be much growing that day.

Then finally a couple of days ago, it came. The morning air felt warm, the animals turned their noses up at the hay and the green came bursting out all over.

Ireland’s other great summer field game

The major struggle for farmers in our climate is to match the constant daily food needs of our animals to the highly variable daily yields of feed produced by nature. For nine months of the year the challenge is to have enough grass, hay or silage to feed them, but for May, June and July the challenge is to harness the blaze of growth, to waste as little as possible and conserve as much as possible as hay or silage.

In the grazing game, no two years are the same, no two months are the same, and no two days are even the same. This forces us, like good hurlers, to be ever on our toes, vigilant, flexible and adaptive every day.

Rules of the game

The most useful knowledge we have in this game was developed in the 1950s by a French farmer and scientist named Andre Voisin (1903-1964). Voisin made out four rules to manage grazing, which are the basis for modern good practice. Though we now take rotational grazing for granted, it was Andre Voisin’s observation and his four rules that directed us here, so it is well worth keeping them in mind.

Rule 1. Grazing interval must be long enough to allow root accumulation and to allow new tillers to reach their “blaze” of growth.

Rule 2. Grazing duration should be short enough to prevent new emerging tillers being damaged – the quicker the growth, the shorter the grazing duration must be.

Rule 3. The animals with the highest nutritional needs should get priority access.

Rule 4. Maximum milk yields require short “one-day” grazing duration.

Playing the game

In applying those rules on an organic beef farm, with cows, calves, yearlings and finishers, the complexity can be overwhelming. For the last two years I have therefore reduced the complexity of my game by putting all the animals in one group and using a portable watering point and electric fences to apply the four rules.

Keeping all ages in one group goes against conventional wisdom regarding parasite control, however it is working for me. I have taken faecal egg counts and the level of infestation has, so far, not shown a problem - I assume due to a dilution effect and resistance building.

On the other hand, the huge benefit is that I have just one portable watering point, one group to herd and one portable paddock to manage, which means I can focus totally on my grazing game.

I plan to enjoy applying Andre Voisin’s rules to the glorious blaze of grass expected in the weeks ahead. Hopefully there will be time left to catch some blazing glory from the hurling as well.