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For those on good land, this is grazing weather.
I was with a discussion group in Cork last Thursday and the average farm cover on the members’ farms was around 900kg/ha and, to my surprise, most of the farmers had between 20% and 40% of their farm grazed.
This amount of land grazed is more than expected and definitely more than what most farms have grazed. This is because there was very few cows calved when the weather was good in early February and the weather has been poor since.
The great thing about having a high enough proportion of the ground grazed by now is that the grass on this area has more of a chance to recover and grow back in time for the second round in early April.
The normal target is to have 66% of the farm grazed by St Patrick’s Day
And of course the reverse is true where not enough of the farm is grazed to date. The risk is that your farm will go from a massive grass surplus towards the end of the first round to a grass deficit in the second round because of insufficient regrowth in the first grazed fields.
The normal target is to have 66% of the farm grazed by St Patrick’s Day.
Through no fault of their own, most farmers will miss this target.
Behind on grazing targets
But to look ahead, presuming you have a high cover (more than 850kg/ha) and little area grazed, what can you do to make sure you have enough grass back for the second round?
Growth rates are good at present, so the more area you can graze now the better.
Achieve this by removing silage from the diet and grazing cows night and day. Of course, this is dependent on ground conditions, but most farms are drying out fast, so this should be possible on most farms.
Meal can also be reduced. There are no issues with reducing meal feeding levels to 1kg or 2kg per day when on grass full time.
Another tool to increase the amount of grass being grazed is to turn out other stock. The first to be considered to be turned out is maiden heifers and then dry cows.
Turning out dry cows to eat grass might seem like an alien move, but it is essential where farm covers are high and where only a small area has been grazed to date.
Get walking
Of course, you need to know where you stand grass wise, so go and walk your farm and measure grass.
The aim is to start the second round in early April at an average farm cover of around 500kg/ha.
Eat as much grass now as possible, but have it in the back of your mind that you need to reach early April and that there needs to be enough regrowth to keep the cows on a 20-day round then.
SHARING OPTIONS: