Spring grazing in diffucult conditions
Heavy rainfall over past two weeks has left a lot of ground conditions challenging for grazing. Some of the drier farms in the county did get a chance earlier in the month to get cows out for a couple of days but have since been forced indoors. Nevertheless, the value of grass in the cow’s diet must be emphasised. On average spring grass has a protein content of 19-22% and a UFL value of 0.95/KG DM and a costing of 0.07c/Kg of DM which is approximately three times cheaper than feeding meal.
Apart from making financial sense, increasing the percentage of grass in the cow’s diet improves dietary energy, protein and the cow’s intake potential along with reduced labour and slurry storage demands. Early grazing stimulates the plant awakening it from a period of dormancy which has a positive effect of the total tonnes of grass grown in further rotations.
Unfortunately we can’t control the weather but we can put a plan in place to take advantage of the unsettled weather.
A Guide to on/off Grazing in Difficult Conditions
Milk cows at 7am and feed 2kg meal (cows should not be full of silage in the morning period and should have a keen appetite for grass after milking. Cows full of silage tend to do a lot of walking when turned out to grass instead of grazing causing unnecessary damage to paddocks)
Pick the drier paddocks with a cover of 700 -900 kgDM/ha (Just a little over a fist full in height/7-8cm)
Out to grass between 9-10am with a keen appetite for grass, allocating enough grass for 2-3 hours
Cows return to shed at 12-1pm – no silage
Cows milked earlier at 3pm 2kg meal, no silage offered after milking
Out again for a further 2-3 hours grazing and back in by 7 or 8pm
Back fence strip for the next day, use spur roadways to minimise poaching along with multiple access points to paddocks.
Silage at night - Cows have access to silage until early hours of the morning Monitor cow’s intake to ensure adequate feed on a daily basis
Have a flexible approach– cattle can go in and out!
Too wet? Stay inside – but try again tomorrow
Nature has its own way of balancing things and there is no doubt that a period of good weather will come shortly. For those of us with heavier soils this will present an opportunity to get cows out full time to ty regain lost time. It’s vital we put a plan in place and try to achieve some of the targets in the spring rotation planner. Bearing in mind that the first 30% we graze will be the grass will be the first grass available to cows in second rotation. This ground needs time to recover and grow. It’s likely we have to push the start date of the second rotation out a week until the 10th of April. However, once you have a cover of 1200kgDM/ ha on the first paddocks grazed you can then start the second rotation.