It has been a long winter for many cattle farmers with animals housed from late August and limited fodder supplies.

For many herd owners, spring cannot come quickly enough. Although it is still mid-March, with forward planning, there may be an opportunity to get some cattle back to grass in the coming weeks.

This will ease silage demand, allowing farmers to stretch existing supplies to the end of the housing period and avoid further purchasing of fodder at this stage of the year.

Farms with drier land are ideally suited to getting cattle back to grass in late March.

But there are many farms working on medium to heavy soils that can possibly get some cattle out to grass where silage stocks are running low.

Outlined in this article are 10 steps to help farmers get some cattle out to grass and improve grazing management.

1 Walk the farm and assess how much grass is available: the first step before turnout is to walk your land to judge ground conditions and grass covers present.

Identify which fields are saturated and which fields are capable of handling some livestock if required.

If ground conditions are slowly improving but too marginal for cattle, note the fields and repeat this exercise a week later to see what has changed.

Measure grass covers when walking the land. Ideally, you should use a plate meter or simply make a couple of lines on your boot – one at 4cm and one at 10cm, to work out an opening cover.

But for the less experienced farmer at measuring grass, you could simply class each field as being low, medium or good for grass cover.

At the end of your walk, you should try to gauge how many days of grazing you would have on farm for a particular group of stock, eg 10 yearling heifers.

2 Target silage ground or paddocks with heavy covers first: on most farms, silage ground tends to be drier land and is therefore better suited to handling cattle in early spring.

Grazing the silage ground as tight as possible is highly recommended, as it removes any dead material which has built up in the sward over the winter.

By grazing off the silage ground before closing up for first cut, you will also improve silage quality (D-value) by around four units, which is the equivalent of 1kg of concentrate (16%).

Silage yield will not suffer by grazing before closing for first cut, as long as cattle are removed by mid-April. The fresh regrowth will be more responsive to fertiliser applied compared with a sward with a white base and high levels of dead grass present. You should also target turning cattle out to paddocks with heavy covers of grass for similar reasons. Cleaning off heavy covers removes dead material and stimulates higher growth rates once fertilised. Grass quality in regrowth will also improve where heavy covers have been grazed off tight.

3 Prioritise cattle for turnout: early turnout is ideally suited to smaller, lighter cattle that will do less damage to ground should ground conditions become difficult.

Smaller cattle also have a lower demand for grazed grass, therefore a field will last longer compared with a group of cows.

Target lighter cattle such as autumn calves, yearling heifers that are going to the bull during the summer, or yearling steers that will be housed for finishing next winter.

Leave heavier cattle until grass growth increases and ground conditions are suitable.

4 Start with small groups: early turnout is not about letting all your cattle out to grass on the same day, or same week.

Once you know how much grass you have on farm, turn a small group of cattle out to start off grazing.

Ideally, start with one pen of cattle at a time; that way, they can be easily rehoused should weather conditions deteriorate.

Allow cattle to settle for a few days and if ground conditions and grass supplies allow, you can then increase the group size with another pen of animals.

5 Turn cattle out hungry: if you are planning to put some cattle back to grass, they should go back to grass in a fasting state so that they settle and start grazing immediately.

Do not offer them silage for at least 12 hours before turnout. Also, to get cattle to settle quicker after turnout, allow them to stand in handling pens for a couple of hours before going to grass.

This is extremely beneficial if you are mixing cattle at turnout, preventing cattle from damaging grazing ground.

6 Spread slurry on low grass covers and after grazing: with pressure on slurry storage, the priority may have been on getting slurry on to any land capable of carrying machinery.

However, grazing swards that have been recently slurried will be harder to graze out properly and cattle are more likely to be unsettled on them.

If you plan on spreading slurry soon, apply it to fields with low grass covers as they are unlikely to be grazed for three to four weeks. Alternatively, spread slurry on paddocks after they have been grazed.

However, be careful of grazing cows with calves on ground that has received slurry this spring as the risk of grass tetany will be increased.

7 Use bagged fertiliser on medium grass covers: fields with medium grass covers will give a higher growth response to chemical fertiliser compared with paddocks with low, or heavy covers. As these fields may be needed for grazing within one to two weeks of turnout date, there will be no issue with palatability for cattle if bagged fertiliser is used as opposed to slurry.

8 Choosing a fertiliser: which fertiliser product you choose should be based on soil fertility, not price. If soils are low in phosphate (P) and potash (K), you will grow more grass in spring by applying a compound product such as 25-5-5 compared with CAN or urea.

As with slurry, ensure cows are being supplemented with magnesium if you are using a fertiliser containing potash.

Where soil fertility is good, with a P and K index of 2 or higher, you can apply a straight nitrogen product such as CAN or urea. Apply urea during dull, overcast weather and when soil moisture levels are high.

9 Protect grazed areas: once paddocks have been grazed, it is important to protect regrowth so that you have sufficient grazing in the next rotation.

If cattle are not following a rotation, use a temporary electric wire that can be moved to protect areas that have been grazed.

Using an electric wire to strip graze will also improve grass utilisation when grazing in spring.

10 Walk farm weekly and reassess: once you have some cattle at grass, it is important that you continue to walk the farm at least once a week.

As before, note ground conditions and which fields are improving. Also note how grass is growing and whether or not more fertiliser needs to be applied.

Use this information to determine whether you can turn more cattle out to grass.