Lower than average rainfall in December and January plus a drying breeze over the last week or so means that free-draining land is much drier than normal this February.
Low-lying land impacted by a high water table is still wet, but other land is exceptionally dry for the time of year.
That’s bonus number one. The second bonus is that grass supply is much higher than normal this spring.
Now, a lot of farmers that have measured grass in recent days were disappointed with their covers, but based on how cows are grazing, I think there’s more grass in the fields than first realised.
Both of these points – dry land and plenty of grass present farmers with a great opportunity to reduce costs and produce more milk this spring. If the opportunity to get cows out early is taken, then there will be a third bonus for dairy farmers: less work.
It’s a unique situation and the total opposite to this time last year when ground was saturated.
The only issue is it’s time limited – if the weather changes the situation will change so to make use of the opportunity farmers must act soon.
Milk
At a Teagasc/Tirlán event in Waterford last week Teagasc adviser Sandra Hayes went through milk yield responses at various diets.
She said that if cows are on an all silage and 6kg meal diet, based on typical silage quality of 68% DMD that diet would only support 16kg of milk.
She said that cows will milk more than that but the additional energy will be coming off their backs and negative energy balance will be more severe and last longer.
Cows out grazing at the Teagasc/Tirlan farm walk in Waterford last week on the farm of Stephen Fitzgerald in Aglish.
Plus, it was said that protein per cent will be suppressed even months later. The point being that milk off a cow’s back is not free milk. It’ll cost in lower fertility and suppressed milk protein.
Based on the data in Table 1, there is a potential swing of €5.31 per cow per day between feed costs and milk value.
This doesn’t include the other benefits such as reduced workload when cows are out grazing.
Other financial benefits which are hard to quantify but are very real will come in the second and third round as grass quality will be much higher on fields that are grazed out well in February.
This is such a critical time for feed quality, coming as it does when cows are at peak milk production.
Ground conditions
Farmers looking to maximise this peak should have cows out day and night as soon as they can and ensure that they are cleaning out paddocks well, grazing right down to even below 3.5cm in the first rotation.
Normally, this is not possible because ground conditions won’t allow it and cow intakes will suffer, but based on the experiences of those with cows out this week, good utilisation and high intakes are possible. Unfortunately, farmers on wet land will have to wait longer for this.
After the snow and frost, many grass swards are looking wispy, yellow and brown.
These are still holding their quality, despite their appearance and cows will still perform well on them.
However, the general advice is to get these swards grazed off by early March.
In short
Fantastic opportunity to get freshly calved cows out grazing while conditions are good. Cows will produce more milk and at lower costs when out fulltime compared to cows that are being fed silage. Good utilisation is possible where ground conditions are good and there is generally more grass available than it looks as grass dry matter is high.
Lower than average rainfall in December and January plus a drying breeze over the last week or so means that free-draining land is much drier than normal this February.
Low-lying land impacted by a high water table is still wet, but other land is exceptionally dry for the time of year.
That’s bonus number one. The second bonus is that grass supply is much higher than normal this spring.
Now, a lot of farmers that have measured grass in recent days were disappointed with their covers, but based on how cows are grazing, I think there’s more grass in the fields than first realised.
Both of these points – dry land and plenty of grass present farmers with a great opportunity to reduce costs and produce more milk this spring. If the opportunity to get cows out early is taken, then there will be a third bonus for dairy farmers: less work.
It’s a unique situation and the total opposite to this time last year when ground was saturated.
The only issue is it’s time limited – if the weather changes the situation will change so to make use of the opportunity farmers must act soon.
Milk
At a Teagasc/Tirlán event in Waterford last week Teagasc adviser Sandra Hayes went through milk yield responses at various diets.
She said that if cows are on an all silage and 6kg meal diet, based on typical silage quality of 68% DMD that diet would only support 16kg of milk.
She said that cows will milk more than that but the additional energy will be coming off their backs and negative energy balance will be more severe and last longer.
Cows out grazing at the Teagasc/Tirlan farm walk in Waterford last week on the farm of Stephen Fitzgerald in Aglish.
Plus, it was said that protein per cent will be suppressed even months later. The point being that milk off a cow’s back is not free milk. It’ll cost in lower fertility and suppressed milk protein.
Based on the data in Table 1, there is a potential swing of €5.31 per cow per day between feed costs and milk value.
This doesn’t include the other benefits such as reduced workload when cows are out grazing.
Other financial benefits which are hard to quantify but are very real will come in the second and third round as grass quality will be much higher on fields that are grazed out well in February.
This is such a critical time for feed quality, coming as it does when cows are at peak milk production.
Ground conditions
Farmers looking to maximise this peak should have cows out day and night as soon as they can and ensure that they are cleaning out paddocks well, grazing right down to even below 3.5cm in the first rotation.
Normally, this is not possible because ground conditions won’t allow it and cow intakes will suffer, but based on the experiences of those with cows out this week, good utilisation and high intakes are possible. Unfortunately, farmers on wet land will have to wait longer for this.
After the snow and frost, many grass swards are looking wispy, yellow and brown.
These are still holding their quality, despite their appearance and cows will still perform well on them.
However, the general advice is to get these swards grazed off by early March.
In short
Fantastic opportunity to get freshly calved cows out grazing while conditions are good. Cows will produce more milk and at lower costs when out fulltime compared to cows that are being fed silage. Good utilisation is possible where ground conditions are good and there is generally more grass available than it looks as grass dry matter is high. 
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