Great weather for winter grazing

Weather over the past week has been excellent and was a welcome relief from the rain of the previous few weeks.

On dry farms, the fine weather has meant cows can stay out night and day without a risk of damage, while on heavy farms it has meant that cows can go out, using on/off grazing at times.

The good news is the weather forecast is predicting dry weather throughout the coming weekend.

On grass, farmers should take this opportunity to get the high covers grazed off when grazing conditions are good.

Carrying over very high covers will lead to a lot of die-back and tiller mortality over the winter, with poor quality and bare patches next spring.

At this stage, the critical figure is average farm cover. The target is to have an average farm cover of between 600 and 700kg/ha in late November.

Tread carefully

Farmers who are at or below this figure now should tread carefully.

There is some leeway to go below target now, on the assumption that 1) you close up the farm very shortly and 2) growth rates will be high enough to bring the farm back to target over the next four weeks.

An average growth rate of 10kg/day over the next month will add 300kg/ha to average farm cover.

But one week of grazing cows full-time stocked at 2.5 cows/ha will knock 280kg/ha off average farm cover. This shows that at this time of year grass is built up slowly but removed quickly.

Because grass is so much more valuable next spring, you need to be very careful about grazing decisions now.

Average grass growth is 25kg/day, which is double the 10-year average for the same week.

While a drop in air temperatures is forecast, soil temperatures are currently running a few degrees higher than normal, so I would expect the good growth rates to last a bit longer.

Teagasc Curtins Farm, Cork

Stocking rate (cows/ha) 2.76

Growth rate (kg/day) 51

Average farm cover (kg/ha) 896

Yield (l/cow/day) 13

Fat % 5.64

Protein % 4.41

Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.3

Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 1

Grazing conditions are excellent and cows are really skinning out paddocks to 3.5cm. It’s amazing the difference a week makes. None of the cows have been dried off yet – we will wait another week or so before drying off the first calving cows.

We are on target for average farm cover so we are only feeding 1kg of meal. SCC is currently 140,000 and TBC is 7,000. We are allocating 16kg of grass on a 12-hour basis.

Teagasc Ballyhaise, Cavan

Stocking rate (cows/ha) 2.55

Growth rate (kg/day) 16

Average farm cover (kg/ha) 77

Yield (l/cow/day) 11.1

Fat % 5.25

Protein % 4.12

Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.07

Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 3

Growth has fallen a bit this week but the weather has been excellent and the cows are out day and night on 12 hour wires. There is no damage being done. I think we have about 10 full days at grass left. I think when the conditions are good we should graze away and get the farm closed. The target is to close the farm at an average farm cover of around 650kg/ha. We have some paddocks that were closed at a cover of 800kg, so we will have to decide whether or not to graze these again. If we do we will probably dip below 650kg/ha.

Mullinahone, Tipperary

Stocking rate (cows/ha) 2.43

Growth rate (kg/day) 23

Average farm cover (kg/ha) 632

Yield (l/cow/day) 12.1

Fat % 4.95

Protein % 3.91

Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.1

Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 4m

I took my eye off the ball for a bit a few weeks ago and I’m playing catch-up now. Average farm cover dropped too low because I kept the in-calf heifers on the platform for too long so I had to go in with extra supplement.

We’re feeding 4kg of meal and cows are in at night. Growth is good so we should be able to hold the average farm cover where it is and stay out by day until the middle of the month. Cows have dropped in milk so I’m going to cut back on the meal to 2.5 or 3kg/day. I have 66% of the farm closed so I’m happy enough with that.

Clarinbridge, Galway

Stocking rate (cows/ha) 2.73

Growth rate (kg/day) 38

Average farm cover (kg/ha) 902

Yield (l/cow/day) 12

Fat % 5.65

Protein % 4.1

Milk solids (kg/cow) 1.2

Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 3

We have 80% of the farm grazed. We said we wouldn’t put in too much supplement when the weather was bad as we felt the cows would graze out better.

As a result, we only have five paddocks left to graze and some of these have very heavy covers.

We want to close the farm at 700kg/ha so we will make a call on whether to keep going or stop when we have these paddocks grazed.

Cows are in at night since the weekend and are getting 3kg of meal. Growth is really good. We spread slurry with an injector right up to the closing date and it’s a great job.

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