There has been a bit of a lift in weather over the weekend and the forecast isn’t too bad up until Friday.

This might be a good opportunity to graze the last of the heavy covers on farms. With heavy rain forecasted for the weekend, ground conditions may not get any better in the coming weeks.

30% closed up

Most farmers have now over 30% of the farm closed up for the spring and the paddocks that are closed from now on are more than likely going to be the first grazed next spring.

Taking that the first paddocks grazed are going to have the heaviest covers in the spring, you are going to wait to graze these when you have a high percentage of your cows calved and demand is high.

The paddocks you graze from now on will have a cover of 1,000kg DM/ha or less on 1 February and are the paddocks you should target grazing first.

This is because you will have a small number of cows calved in early February, so starting them off on a lower cover will help you get through more ground and hit your target of 30% grazed by 1 March.

Or maybe you will be out 10 February and it will be 10 March, depending on land type.

Adjustment

Also, cows are eating silage all winter, so it will take a few days for them to adjust back to eating grass.

Low covers closer to 900kg DM/ha will have fresher grass, which cows will utilise a lot better than if they are let into heavy covers early on.

Knowing this, you can now target grazing a dry paddock or two close to the parlour with good access this week.

It will encourage you to get the cows out early in the spring knowing that you have a suitable paddock ready to go.