There is a massive variation in ground conditions around the country this week. While farmers in the east have had a few fine days, farmers in the west received heavy rain at the weekend, which has meant a lot of cattle have had to be housed over the past few days.
This is the correct decision to take where damage is being done to paddocks. Poached paddocks will not recover at this stage and will be difficult to manage again in spring if poached severely. All farms should be now closing up paddocks in anticipation of early grazing next spring.
The temptation on some heavy farms will be to return light weanlings or ewes to graze off some good recoveries.
While it may seem a good idea at the time, it will be to the detriment of letting out stock early next spring.
There is no problem grazing ewes across paddocks as long as it’s completed in a staged manner and you stick to the autumn rotation plan. If some dry paddocks are closed first than this will give better options next spring.
House animals if damage is taking place.Finishing animals should be housed on wet farms at this stage.Close off some dry paddocks first to leave options next spring.Don’t be tempted to graze recoveries from already closed paddocks.Richard Jennings
Co Mayo
Wet weather last weekend meant we have all cows housed. We had most of the heavier covers grazed off and any left will be taken care of by the ewes. I am aiming to have cows out by mid-March next year, so I need to do things right now in October to achieve this.
We just got the last of our slurry out last week very close to the closing date but land was just about dry enough last week for machinery to work.
We currently have about 25% of our paddocks closed, with about 75% left to graze. This will be grazed by our ewes until they are housed in mid-January. I have found it to be a really good year for grass growth here in the west, although utilising it was very challenging at times.
We have all lambs gone and they throve really well all summer, as did our weanlings. Some of our really good bull weanlings were gaining up to 2kg/daily before being sold.
Next job on our farm is to condition-score cows and feed accordingly. We will target a condition score of about 2.5 at calving.
Tomas Murphy
Co Laois
Ground conditions here in Laois have been very good over the past week and have been ideal for clearing out paddocks, with no poaching taking place even though we are grazing quite tight. We have about 20% of the land area closed up so far with about half of this silage ground. In spring, we usually allow cattle graze some grazing ground first and then move on to silage ground, so we need to plan that now. We currently have about 25 days ahead. Our finishing cattle have been thriving very well at grass.
We will house our 18-month-old steers in the next 10 days. They are currently approximately 575kg and we will aim to finish them over the next 100 days on a concentrate and silage diet. Calves have all been weaned two weeks. We separated the calves and cows and put them in two adjoining paddocks with sheep wire and it worked out relatively stress-free. Calves are currently on 1.25kg/day of a 18% crude protein ration and were all dosed last week with a pour-on. I will hopefully be able to keep cows out until mid-November. Silage tests came back at 75DMD and 15.3% protein which I’m really happy with.
Donal Scully
Co Limerick
Ground conditions are quite good. Heavy rain at the weekend did leave some paddocks sticky but we didn’t do any poaching damage. Grass growth has dropped off in the past week, with temperatures dropping and getting very cold at night. We currently have 21 days of grass ahead and we started closing up paddocks on 12 October. Closed paddocks have been greening up well.
We vaccinated all our autumn-born calves in advance of housing. We cover them for IBR, PI3 and RSV. It’s too much of a risk not to vaccinate. I am very happy with cow condition and they are milking very well. Once housed, we will feed our mature cows high-DMD silage only and our first calvers will get 1kg of ration to ensure they don’t lose too much condition. The bull was introduced to the cows seven weeks ago and has been very active during this time and only a few repeats. Heifers received one round of AI and I used highly reliable easy-calving bulls, which included ZAG, RIO and AA2025.
Matthew Murphy
Newford Farm
Ground conditions have deteriorated a lot here in the west over the past few days, which meant we had to house a little earlier than we would have liked. We are housing cows as we wean them and feeding them some straw and silage to help dry them off. Our average farm cover has dropped to 550kg DM/ha. This is behind target and this is why we have housed some stock. Our growth rate over the past seven days was 25kg DM/ha/day and we currently have 23 days ahead. The problem is that we have very little heavy covers left to graze, with our heaviest covers at 1,000kg DM/ha. Finishing animals have performed very well since housing. Our forward group of finishing steers are currently 652kg and are on 6kg of a cereal based ration and good-quality silage. Our forward finishing group of heifers are currently 558kg on the same diet. We will hopefully have a draft next week for slaughter. We need to be conscious of housing space when all cattle are housed. We currently have all male weanlings weaned and they are eating 1kg/head /day of a 16% crude protein ration. All weanlings were vaccinated for pneumonia two weeks prior to weaning.
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Grass+ dairy: Good grazing conditions but growth will slow down
There is a massive variation in ground conditions around the country this week. While farmers in the east have had a few fine days, farmers in the west received heavy rain at the weekend, which has meant a lot of cattle have had to be housed over the past few days.
This is the correct decision to take where damage is being done to paddocks. Poached paddocks will not recover at this stage and will be difficult to manage again in spring if poached severely. All farms should be now closing up paddocks in anticipation of early grazing next spring.
The temptation on some heavy farms will be to return light weanlings or ewes to graze off some good recoveries.
While it may seem a good idea at the time, it will be to the detriment of letting out stock early next spring.
There is no problem grazing ewes across paddocks as long as it’s completed in a staged manner and you stick to the autumn rotation plan. If some dry paddocks are closed first than this will give better options next spring.
House animals if damage is taking place.Finishing animals should be housed on wet farms at this stage.Close off some dry paddocks first to leave options next spring.Don’t be tempted to graze recoveries from already closed paddocks.Richard Jennings
Co Mayo
Wet weather last weekend meant we have all cows housed. We had most of the heavier covers grazed off and any left will be taken care of by the ewes. I am aiming to have cows out by mid-March next year, so I need to do things right now in October to achieve this.
We just got the last of our slurry out last week very close to the closing date but land was just about dry enough last week for machinery to work.
We currently have about 25% of our paddocks closed, with about 75% left to graze. This will be grazed by our ewes until they are housed in mid-January. I have found it to be a really good year for grass growth here in the west, although utilising it was very challenging at times.
We have all lambs gone and they throve really well all summer, as did our weanlings. Some of our really good bull weanlings were gaining up to 2kg/daily before being sold.
Next job on our farm is to condition-score cows and feed accordingly. We will target a condition score of about 2.5 at calving.
Tomas Murphy
Co Laois
Ground conditions here in Laois have been very good over the past week and have been ideal for clearing out paddocks, with no poaching taking place even though we are grazing quite tight. We have about 20% of the land area closed up so far with about half of this silage ground. In spring, we usually allow cattle graze some grazing ground first and then move on to silage ground, so we need to plan that now. We currently have about 25 days ahead. Our finishing cattle have been thriving very well at grass.
We will house our 18-month-old steers in the next 10 days. They are currently approximately 575kg and we will aim to finish them over the next 100 days on a concentrate and silage diet. Calves have all been weaned two weeks. We separated the calves and cows and put them in two adjoining paddocks with sheep wire and it worked out relatively stress-free. Calves are currently on 1.25kg/day of a 18% crude protein ration and were all dosed last week with a pour-on. I will hopefully be able to keep cows out until mid-November. Silage tests came back at 75DMD and 15.3% protein which I’m really happy with.
Donal Scully
Co Limerick
Ground conditions are quite good. Heavy rain at the weekend did leave some paddocks sticky but we didn’t do any poaching damage. Grass growth has dropped off in the past week, with temperatures dropping and getting very cold at night. We currently have 21 days of grass ahead and we started closing up paddocks on 12 October. Closed paddocks have been greening up well.
We vaccinated all our autumn-born calves in advance of housing. We cover them for IBR, PI3 and RSV. It’s too much of a risk not to vaccinate. I am very happy with cow condition and they are milking very well. Once housed, we will feed our mature cows high-DMD silage only and our first calvers will get 1kg of ration to ensure they don’t lose too much condition. The bull was introduced to the cows seven weeks ago and has been very active during this time and only a few repeats. Heifers received one round of AI and I used highly reliable easy-calving bulls, which included ZAG, RIO and AA2025.
Matthew Murphy
Newford Farm
Ground conditions have deteriorated a lot here in the west over the past few days, which meant we had to house a little earlier than we would have liked. We are housing cows as we wean them and feeding them some straw and silage to help dry them off. Our average farm cover has dropped to 550kg DM/ha. This is behind target and this is why we have housed some stock. Our growth rate over the past seven days was 25kg DM/ha/day and we currently have 23 days ahead. The problem is that we have very little heavy covers left to graze, with our heaviest covers at 1,000kg DM/ha. Finishing animals have performed very well since housing. Our forward group of finishing steers are currently 652kg and are on 6kg of a cereal based ration and good-quality silage. Our forward finishing group of heifers are currently 558kg on the same diet. We will hopefully have a draft next week for slaughter. We need to be conscious of housing space when all cattle are housed. We currently have all male weanlings weaned and they are eating 1kg/head /day of a 16% crude protein ration. All weanlings were vaccinated for pneumonia two weeks prior to weaning.
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Grass+ dairy: Good grazing conditions but growth will slow down
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