There has been over 55mm of rainfall in the past 10 days on the Thrive demonstration farm in Cashel, Co Tipperary and so both ground conditions and grass dry matter has come under pressure. With all the finishing stock housed for some time now, only this year’s calves remain at pasture. There is plenty of grass on the farm but now that conditions have started to deteriorate, making the most of that grass now becomes a bit trickier.

We are fortunate in that we are able to keep stock out at grass with many farmers forced to house stock due to poor ground conditions. Luckily ground conditions, although sticky after heavy rainfall, are recovering once they get a few hours of break in the weather.

Restless

Dairy-beef calves will stand in a huddle during poor periods of weather and are quick to let you know when it is time to move to a fresh paddock as they become restless quite quickly once the best of the grazing has been consumed.

In order to maintain performance over the next few weeks, it is necessary to keep them moving to fresh grass as often as possible as well as offering stock straw and meal.

Meal is being fed once a day and now that the weather is poorer, feeding rates have increased to 1.5kg/day. Grass quality remains good but with lower dry matter it means there is less feeding in every mouthful of grass.

There are a lot of heavy covers still on the farm.

Low fibre levels in the grass also mean that passage rate through the animal is increased significantly reducing the amount of time the animal has to absorb the nutrition from the grass as it passes through the digestive tract. It is for this reason that straw bales are offered in the corner of the paddock to allow the calves to self-regulate their intake of roughage. On wet days or nights, you will see the intake of straw increase significantly.

Fibre

This will increase the amount of fibre in the diet, slow down passage rate and allow stock to get more nutrition from the grass. It will also help keep bellies full and it should reduce the amount of parading stock do when coming to the end of a paddock of grass.

While having straw in the paddock can make a mess, it is still worthwhile as it means we can maintain cattle at grass for longer and performance will be quite decent. Where possible, the straw will be offered on the farm roadway or a stand-off area to minimise poaching.