Grass+ dairy: Good grazing conditions but growth will slow down

Average growth rates have dipped this week to 35kg per day, which is still high for the time of year but we can expect growth to reduce sharply after a cold week. While it was cold, it was also dry and ground and grazing conditions are close to ideal.

At this stage, most of the heavier covers and wetter parts of the farms should be grazed off and closed up for next spring. Remember the target is to graze 60% of the farm by the end of the month. At this stage, average farm cover should be around 800 to 900kg/ha. You want to close your farm in mid-November with a cover of between 600 and 700kg/ha.

Some farmers are already approaching these closing cover targets. If farm cover is running low and you want to keep grass in the diet going into November, then you must supplement heavily now. Alternatively, some will decide to graze away while ground conditions are good and then house the herd fully in November. There are pros and cons to both approaches. If going to house early, you can afford to let average farm cover drop below target closing cover considering there will be no demand for grass when they are housed.

On the other hand, there are others with oceans of grass and average farm cover still above 1,200kg/ha. These farmers are struggling to get ground grazed and closed for next spring. In such cases, any supplement should be withdrawn. Alternate grazings between high and low covers to keep the quality of the diet as good as possible. Consider bringing in other stock to the milking platform to get covers grazed. If some covers are gone very high, leave them until next month for dry cows, but be aware that the regrowths on high covers will be low.

Shane Leane

Teagasc Curtins Farm

We had a good bit of rain over the weekend which made ground sticky but we are back to normal again.

We are still on 36-hour allocations but ground is good and so is the clean-out, so I am reluctant to change. Cows are on 2kg of meal still. We could reduce this but have decided to keep it the same.

No cows have been dried off yet. We did a body condition score this morning and any cow below 2.75 will be dried off over the coming weeks. Otherwise, things are quiet on the farm.

Donal Patton

Teagasc Ballyhaise

Ground conditions are sticky but no damage has been done. We are grazing lighter covers on dry ground for the last week. We have 46% of the farm closed, which is slightly behind based on our target of 70% by 1 November.

With the dry weather this week we tried to graze more of the heavier covers. We plan to dry off some of the low yielders this week, which is about 7% of the herd.

The average milk price received for the month of September was 33.5 c/l.

Conor Kelleher

Aherla, Co Cork

I had it in the budget to start feeding silage this week but I decided against it because the weather is good. I think it’s better to keep the head down and graze through area. If it means having to feed a bit more silage later then what about it.

The target is to close at a cover of 750kg/ha. I have one big cover left of 2,200kg that I’m delaying grazing for as long as possible – I just hope it won’t be wet when I do get into it. Pre-grazing yield is between 1,400 and 1,800kg/ha.

I have 440kg milk solids produced to date.

Brian Conlon

Templeboy, Co Sligo

Average farm cover is much lower than I’d like. The wet September was a big problem, and growth has been slow since. We have just finished extending the shed, but this meant that I couldn’t feed silage before now so I had to keep them out when I should have been feeding silage to keep grass cover up. The result is I will have to house two weeks early and milk from the shed. I still expect average farm cover to be around 600kg/ha by mid-November. Cows are housed now by night and we will graze per day until 25 October.

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