This is a subscriber-only article
The last seven days have seen a welcome respite from the heavy rain and drizzle of the previous three weeks. While the forecast for the coming few days is more mixed, ground has dried out a lot and most farmers have been able to resume grazing.
As outlined in Grass+, most farms have way more grass than normal for this time of year. Surplus grass at this time of year is not something we are used to dealing with.
The first step is to assess your own situation by walking the farm and measuring grass. If you are not very experienced at measuring, just rank the covers into four categories: 0kg to 500kg, 500kg to 1,000kg, 1,000kg to 1,500kg and above 1,500kg. If the average is close to 1,000kg you have loads of grass and, depending on your stocking rate, will struggle to graze it all.
Most farmers in this predicament will need to increase demand. Do this by grazing more stock on the farm (young stock, dry cows) and reducing other feed, such as silage and meal. There is no economic benefit to feeding meal if you are wasting grass. With high covers and standard stocking rates, feeding more than 2kg/cow is excessive if cows are out full time.
SHARING OPTIONS: