With most dairy farms now having completed at least 12 weeks of breeding, it’s time to call a halt. A cow bred today won’t calve until the last week of April next year and, if using a beef bull, it’s likely that the cow won’t calve until early May.

We know that the optimum calving date is sometime around the 14 to 28 February. A cow calving in May is so far removed from the optimum date that she is unprofitable and has no place in an intensive spring-calving, grass-based dairy farm.

The flip side of removing bulls now is that more cows will be not in-calf compared with a longer breeding season. It is better to accept this and move on with the stock that you have than to have a much more spread out calving pattern. With the cost of buying replacement heifers likely to be lower this year, it is a good opportunity to tighten up the calving pattern.

Grass paddocks

Surplus grass paddocks also need to be addressed this week. With heat and moisture in abundance, grass growth has been averaging close to 80kg/day over the last week. This has led to surplus grass on most farms.

It’s important to get these paddocks cut and back growing before you start building up grass covers for the autumn. The longer you wait to cut these surplus paddocks, the slower the re-growth and the longer it will take to get average farm cover up.

With a very mixed weather forecast, the opportunities for cutting silage this week might be hard to come by. An alternative to silage is to bring back heifers or other cattle to graze a paddock or two that are surplus but not too strong. Some farmers will pre-mow in front of heifers to ensure the correct residual is achieved. Any paddock with a cover greater than 2,000 really needs to be cut for silage.

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Dairy management notes for dairy farmers

Efficiency rather than scale drives profit