What you can do to prevent ground damage

Wet weather has taken its toll on land across the country, with an increasing number of cattle forced indoors in the last seven days.

While the next few days look more settled, land takes longer to dry out and recover at this time of the year.

We should not be as liberal now when it comes to poaching as in the springtime.

The rate at which land recovers from damage is related to growing conditions at the time and cooler nights and shorter days are not helping these.

Land is becoming saturated

In many parts of the country, land has become saturated to the extent that no amount of daily moves, roadways, access points or back fences is enough to stop real damage to ground. The rain has been relentless in the midlands, west and parts of the north for weeks at this stage.

Remember that we have more options at this time of the year than in the spring.

Suckler cows have likely done their jobs at this point and can be weaned, locked into a shed and fed straw for a couple of days to dry off.

Offer weaned calves 2kg of meal to keep them warm and facilitate herding.

Finishing cattle

Unfortunately, trying to finish cattle at grass while rain hops of their backs is an exercise in futility and a waste of money where lots of meal is being fed.

They won’t eat as much grass in the unsettled weather. What they do eat will have a reduced feed value. They’ll burn more energy to keep themselves warm and they’ll likely dig up your fields.

Cut your losses and give them a quick burst in the shed.

They might still be gone off the farm before lighter cattle have to come into the shed if you move quick.

For some farmers on exceptionally free-draining soils, it is still business as usual from a grazing point of view.

This weekend, they should have at least 32 grazing days on the farm, as their annual farm cover peaks.

That equates to a farm cover of 1,500kg DM/ha on a farm with a stocking rate of 2.5LU/ha. Start thinking now about which paddocks are most important in the spring for getting stock out. We need to be grazing and closing these in the first week of October.

Newford Herd

System suckler to beef

Soil type dry to heavy

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 1,122

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 58

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 63

We are swimming down here this week and ground conditions are very difficult. There has been 61mm of rain so far here in September, on top of 103mm in August.

I weaned 25 calves on Monday and a further 35 yesterday. We are weaning indoors, separating calves and cows on day one and letting calves in to suck out cows two days later. It is working well so far. Cows are on slats covered in lime and on a straw diet while calves are on straw with ad-lib good-quality silage and 2kg of meal. I am keeping an eye on cows for mastitis. My plan is to let weanlings out again next week but if the weather doesn’t improve I can’t see that happening.

We have housed our 27 lightest (527kg) bullocks for finishing slightly early, which is a big release on ground. Our 20 heaviest (612kg) remain outdoors and we hope to have them gone within a month. We’re feeding them in portable troughs on the roadways at the minute to save ground.

Co Limerick

System suckler to weanling

Soil type highly variable

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 858

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 21

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 28

I am managing OK with the current wet spell as my stocking rate is low. My dairy-bred calves are eating 1kg of ration daily and are moving through the wet land and doing no damage while suckler cows and calves are grazing my dry land. I took out my last few paddocks 10 days ago and spread 2,500 gallons of pig slurry followed by a half bag of urea per acre for the last round. Some of my land is very low for P and K and I will try to use slurry to increase indexes cheaply.

I have 530 bales of top-quality silage made this year. While this is well beyond my winter requirements, I am reluctant to sell good-quality silage at current prices and will have a higher requirement next year as my stocking rate increases.

I plan to start closing up paddocks from 10 October, with 15% of my farm closing each week until 10 November. My aim is to have grass on my dry land to turn out weanlings in late January.

Co Wicklow

System suckler to steer

Soil type free-draining clay

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 1,472

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 40

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 33

Grass is in good supply on the farm and even after the recent poor spell of weather ground conditions are still fairly good. Over 75% of the farm got 25 units of nitrogen in the last 10 days and the remainder will get 25 units before Thursday’s deadline, as I continue to build covers.

Last week, I weaned 14 of my earlier spring-calving cows and I will wean a few more next week and these cows will be used to clean out paddocks after younger stock. Cows that still have calves sucking have access to hi-mag blocks as a precaution against grass tetany. I scanned last week and it went very well, with just one empty cow. I started to introduce meal to a group of steers and three cull cows at grass, which I hope to have slaughtered before Christmas. I reseeded a paddock about a month ago and in the last few days it has started to come on nicely. All weanlings were given a vaccine against clostridial disease and the will be given their booster in four weeks.

Co Clare

System suckler to store

Soil type variable

Avg farm cover (kg DM/ha) 748

Grass demand (kg DM/ha/day) 22

Growth (kg DM/ha/day) 71

Ground conditions are poor here and the level of rain that has fallen over the past week or 10 days has been phenomenal. I’m not tight for grass as my demand is very low at the minute but utilisation is poor. The out-block where my main bunch of spring-calving cows are kept is really beginning to cut up and I weaned another 10 cows this week. They will remain indoors on silage only until they dry up and weather conditions improve.

Thankfully, all the autumn herd has calved with no casualties to report. I’m watching close for tetany in the cows and pneumonia in the calves. I’ve all my finishing cattle housed, with the bulls on ad-lib now. They are all above 500kg at 12 months of age, so hopefully they’ll continue to progress. Heifers are on roughly 8kg/head/day while bullocks are on 10kg/head/day.

I’ve lime to get out on some poorer-performing paddocks. I was hoping to spread fertiliser but with the weather I don’t think it’ll happen.

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