There are always challenges in farming; prices, animal health, profit and of course the weather. The latter is really starting to play up after another day of heavy rain on Friday.

We are in early March and wet weather is to be expected, but the challenges of dealing with it aren’t any less for that.

The two commandments of early spring grazing are thou shalt get cows out to grass and thou shalt not do damage. There are times when this is an impossible task and that’s just a fact of life and a fact of farming.

Avoiding damage

Avoiding damage to swards takes precedence over getting grass into cows. Some damage is acceptable, but any time cows are sinking into the soil more than 1in or 2in is too much damage for me.

In such instances, grazing is just not worth it and it’s better for cows and for land if stock are housed.

The skill is knowing when to let them back out again. This is very subjective and every farm - and indeed every field on every farm - will be at a different stage of grazeability.

It’s often the case that different parts of fields are drier or wetter and most of the best grassland farmers will set up breaks for the cows in the drier parts of the field.

Experience

This knowledge comes with practice and experience. In many cases, services are a big factor, such as access to a roadway, multiple access points in and out, etc.

The more of these you have on the farm, the more options you have during times of wet weather such as the one we’re currently experiencing.

Walking the field will give a good idea of how the cows will act when they get out. If it’s squishy under your foot, it will be badly poached by cows and they shouldn’t go out.

Knowledge only comes with experience and farmers need to be open to trial and error.

If damage is done to a small area, it is not the end of the world and the lesson learned will be more valuable than any future loss of production in that area.