Dairy

Start of closing for the Spring

Autumn closing cover: Most have started closing The heavy rain this week is making cleaning out more difficult where there are heavy covers and softer ground. Growth rates have dropped right back and what was growing 60kg last week is growing 20 kg this week. Older paddocks are now standing still. Use the strip wire to improve utilisation and prevent damage.

Budgeting: Do your cover now for next February. What you close the farm at will decide what the average farm cover is in February. It is the single biggest decision you will make in the next few weeks of grass measuring and budgeting. What cover do you need in February? What will your demand be? How many will be calved early? Your opening cover is entirely dependent on what cover you close the farm at in the autumn.

Feeding meals: Feeding spring calving cows milking less than 2 gallons does not make economic sense. I know one farmer who is very heavily stocked and only has 20 days at grass left. He is feeding 2kg across the herd at the moment. His quota is not yet full so for ease of management purposes he will dry off 50 of the lower yielders the first week in November and feed 50 cows 4 or 5 kg meal indoors on grass silage for three weeks. Another farmer will dry the herd on 1 November and hopes to fill his quota in February as he has all the heifers calving the last week in January. Do your sums on quota?

Watch cows ending first lactation for body condition score. They will need 10 weeks dry period if at all possible.

Feeding depends on silage quality

Conor Butler, FBA labs, Cappoquin has only 10% of silage samples tested. Already he has big variation between samples with DMD range from 57 to 77 and averaging 69.8 units. Dry matter is high averaging 24.9% but again the range is 13.4 to 38.3%. Ammonia is high averaging 7.4. Conor expects a better picture of results in 2 weeks time when he will have a lot more samples tested.

On grass silage based diets, autumn calving cows yielding over 1300 gallons will need over 6kg of meal. Increase this amount up to 9 kg depending on grass silage quality. Build up meal level over 2 weeks.

Two forages in a diet is adequate to get an increase in dry matter intake from mixing forages. There is no added benefit in feeding four forages as some farmers do feeding wholecrop wheat, straw, maize and grass silage in a diet.

Weanlings

Some farmers are saying they are finding it difficult to clean out covers in paddocks with weanlings. One farmer from Kilkenny told me how he dosed the calves 20 August (50 days ago) and they were beginning to cough again. He will use a 'pour on' again as he finds it very handy to administer. He will use a weigh band to identify the few poor weanlings and might even put six or eight in a trailer and drive down to the weighbridge at the co-op just to crosscheck. He is going to pick the lighter heifers out for a little special treatment before they go into the sheds. He might even keep them separate inside if he can.

Soil samples

This is the time of the year to take samples. Apply P, K and lime as recommended. Set out a plan of sampling for the farm.