Benefits of having a grazing plan in place from the autumn

Michael Forde farms alongside his father, Bernie, near Corrandulla in Co Galway, where they run a sheep and beef enterprise on a fragmented farm totalling 27 hectares of grazing ground. Last October, Michael put 175 ewes to the ram alongside a cattle enterprise.

Currently, lambing is just winding down and the Fordes are getting grazing groups established. Given the fragmented nature of the farm, some of the blocks of land are drier than others, and the wet weather conditions in recent months have meant that the grazing plan for the spring has been altered slightly, as some of the land is too wet to graze at the moment.

As with all farms, the weather has made getting some jobs done this spring difficult if not impossible.

Fertiliser in the form of protected urea at 15-20 units per acre has been spread on a couple of drier fields where weather and ground conditions allowed earlier in March, but most of the farm is still waiting for its first round of fertiliser.

As soon as conditions allow, Michael plans to finish the first round of fertiliser, even if that means doing smaller areas at a time once they are ready for fertiliser, as he is conscious of making sure it goes out in the right conditions so it is not wasted.

Opening grass cover on the farm was good with an average farm cover of 1,000kg DM/ ha ahead of where he needed to be. The autumn closing plan implemented on the farm is showing its benefits again, particularly in a difficult year like this.

Right now, there are only ewes and lambs grazing, with all the cattle still housed. While there is enough grass on the farm for the cattle to be turned out, the drier land is being prioritised for the ewes and lambs, and land will have to dry significantly before the cattle go out.

Overall, lambing went well on the farm, bar some of the usual mishaps that can happen on all farms during lambing.

The biggest challenge facing the flock at present is weather conditions, which are slowing getting ewes and lambs out to grass, but also affecting where they can graze due to wet ground conditions.

Michael is taking any opportunity he can to get ewes and lambs out to sheltered paddocks and in the coming weeks will starting grouping them up into larger groups to establish his grazing rotation up to weaning.

This is important, as having too many grazing groups will reduce the areas closed for regrowth and reduce grass availability on the farm.

Ewe BCS at mating last October was OK, with ewes having an average BCS of 3.3 and only 17pc of the ewes coming in with a BCS less than 3.0.

However, an issue with an infectious flock lameness condition, which appears to have been brought in on purchased replacement ewes, led to ewe BCS dropping off considerably between mating and pregnancy scanning, with 30pc of the ewes being less than BCS 3.0 at pregnancy scanning time.

Since the lameness condition has been diagnosed and Michael, in conjunction with his vet, has a treatment plan in place, the lameness levels in the flock have dropped significantly. However, lameness in the ewes and lambs will be monitored carefully throughout the summer.

Ewe BCS takes time to build up and during the last weeks before lambing, any extra nutrients the ewe gets are partitioned mainly towards the growing foetus, so BCS of the ewes will not have improved from where it was at pregnancy scanning.

Michael has good grass covers to turn ewes and their lambs out too, though, and will be monitoring the thinner ewes to ensure that they and their lambs are performing OK at grass.

The scanned litter size for the flock was 1.82 with 96pc of ewes in lamb and over 80pc lambed just under three weeks into lambing, at the time of writing. Michael is happy with the progress.

‘The biggest challenge facing the flock right now is weather’