Watch: do your sums for winter fodder stocks

Weather conditions have been generally good for making silage this year and it should hopefully lead to increased feed quality when compared with last year.

Along with improved animal performance, another advantage of good-quality silage is that it generally takes less of it to meet the nutritional demand of cattle when compared with average or poor-quality silage.

There is also less waste or rejected forage, unlike silage that was cut when grass was at a much more mature stage and contains mostly stem.

While getting sufficient quantity of silage made is important, it should not be done at the expense of quality.

Delaying cutting date by one to two weeks in an effort to increase yield will only serve to delay regrowth, possibly leaving you short for grass next month, as grass growth will be falling as day length starts to shorten.

Budget

Now is a good time to complete a quick silage budget to see how much forage you have in store and how much you will need this winter. A simple forage calculator can be accessed online at www.farmersjournal.ie/toolbox/fodder.php.

The earlier you complete a fodder budget, the more options you have to address a potential shortage.

For instance, you still have time to close off ground for a small third cut of silage, scan and cull out empty cows before housing, finish cattle as bulls instead of steers or sell some cattle as stores rather than housing for finishing. Planning ahead and taking early action is much better than having to buy in fodder next spring.

Week in review

Stock bulls have been running with cows and replacement heifers for seven weeks now. After a busy start, there has been a noticeable lull in bulling activity, which I am hoping to be a good sign of cows settled in calf.

There are 65 cows running in two groups, one with a Limousin bull and the other with an Angus bull. Both stock bulls have been used before and breed good-quality calves.

Along with the cows, I have 26 maiden heifers running with a new Angus stock bull. All bar six of these are homebred.

They weighed 380kg to 400kg liveweight at the start of the breeding period. My plan is to scan the heifers in just over one week’s time.

Heifers will have been with the bull nine weeks by this stage, so it will be interesting to see how many heifers are in-calf at this point.

There is a group of 15 heifers that were kept separate for grazing with the aim of finishing this winter.

I weighed them on Saturday and five animals were over 400kg, so they will get a chance to run with the bull over the next month.

Bulls will be removed from cows and heifers in late August, which will be a total of 12 weeks of breeding. Cows will be scanned one month later, with any barren females weaned and fattened.

Selenium

Cows were given a mineral bolus at turnout, as I have had issues with selenium deficiency in the past. It is hard to say if it had any affect on cow fertility, as I wasn’t really recording when cows were in heat to any real extent.

But I have definitely noticed an improvement in cow condition and calf performance compared with previous years.

Calf health

Calves were wormed three weeks ago with a pour-on drench. I have also given them a drench for coccidiosis, as again this is a health problem I have experienced before and there was the odd calf that gave me reason for concern.

I am planning on taking a few dung samples to see if parasite treatments have been effective or whether I need to change my worming strategy.

Calves are also due to get their first shot of the pneumonia vaccine, along with a clostridial vaccine, in a few weeks, so that they are covered for any possible health breakdown around weaning time. Male calves will also be castrated earlier this year in autumn. It will depend on a few other tasks that have to be completed, as I do not want to wean and castrate cattle around the same time to avoid unnecessary stress on calves.

I cut 34 acres of second-cut silage this week. Grass was cut on Saturday, spread out to wilt on Monday and lifted that evening.

Yields were good and it was ensiled on top of first-cut. On opening the pit, I took a few samples of first-cut to be analysed.

There are still 13 acres of silage to cut in late August on an outfarm that has just been closed up. In addition to pit silage, I have 160 bales of high-quality silage made from surplus grass, with another three acres cut this week. These bales will be targeted to finishing cattle once housed.

A quick silage budget is outlined in Table 1 for this winter and based on 200 days from mid-October to mid-April. This gives a bit of a buffer in case of an early winter or late spring. Feed allowance is reduced to 120 days for finishing cattle.

I will need approximately 900t to 920t of silage in a worst-case scenario. Between first- and second-cut, plus bales, I would have just over 1,000t of fodder in store.

There will be a few cull cows to sell ahead of housing, which will be a saving. Also, silage quality should be good, allowing me to restrict feeding to 20kg to 25kg/day, building up to ad-lib around two months pre-calving. Most cows go to grass from late March to early April, as do weanlings if weather allows, so I should be fine this winter.