Weather

Efforts to keep the farmyard frost and ice-free continue on most farms this week. Take any precautions that you can to limit stock walking on slippery yards.

If you are handling stock around the yard, make sure you have salted the yard well the night before. Every farm should have a supply of salt on hand - it can save an injury (human or animal) and can be very useful.

Stock management

For stock outwintered, make sure they have enough forage. They are using up much more energy to stay warm these weeks compared to the run up to Christmas. They will need extra feed.

It is a difficult few weeks, and young stock or older cows outdoors will need more feed. Break the ice in water troughs inside and outside, especially if you are feeding meal.

Weanlings or dry cows outdoors on forage crops should not be fed frosted leaves. Wait for the leaves to thaw and then feed them. Otherwise you are better holding them off the crop and feeding more baled silage.

Watch out for bloat if you are feeding kale in the frost. Take bloated animals inside and get them back eating hay, and they can go back out after a day or two.

Reducing the feeding rate of concentrates and increasing wet forage intake will reduce the demand for water. Diets high in salt, sodium bicarbonate and protein appear to stimulate water intake. Reducing mineral intake may reduce the demand for water. So if water is frozen, maybe stop feeding minerals.

If access to water has been restricted for any reason, and then suddenly made available, overdrinking or water toxicity can be a very real problem. There were fatalities last winter when animals gorged themselves on water after a period without it. Allow gradual access to the water initially when animals are extremely thirsty.

Dairy Conferences

The weather forced the postponement of the Irish Grassland conference this week. It is now rescheduled for Tuesday 14 January in Charleville. The Positive Farmers conference is also on in Cork next week, on 15-16 January.

If the weather has returned to normal, more farmers will attend and use the opportunity to upskill, set new ideas, discuss options for the coming year. The time is right now, before things get busy on dairy farms, to take a step back from the day-to-day to think about the future.

Nitrogen

I talked about this last week, and I know it’s not spreading time yet, but it is time to start thinking about getting some nitrogen into the yard. It’s better to have it in the yard, even if it is another four or six weeks before you spread.

More farmers are considering slurry now rather than nitrogen. Remember to dilute slurry as best you can, keep spreading it light, and wait until ground conditions allow.

Given the snow accumulations many fields are going to be saturated for a long time when it thaws, so just because the calendar date is open next week for spreading doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.