The last few days have been a wash out for many farms, with even lighter cattle doing too much damage and having to head indoors as damage just becomes too much to handle.
The next few days looks no better, with between 31-77mm of rain set to fall over the next week or so in many counties in Munster and south Leinster, with even dry farms struggling to cope with this.
As it stands, farms are not in a bad position. Average farm cover for drystock farms measuring on Pasturebase are at 639kg DM/ha. Our target for the 1st December is around 600-650kg DM/ha.
While it’s early to be fully housed now, there may be an opportunity later in the month to get one or two heavy paddocks whipped off with cows or store cattle which will correct farm cover. If not, it’s not the end of the world, just that these paddocks may be too heavy for grazing and will be required baling out in early April.
Where cattle are still at grass, take note of the low dry matter at the minute which is sitting around 11%. Cattle will struggle to put on weight at this dry matter unless supplementary feeding is going in to them.
Ken Gill – Clonbollogue, Co Offaly
Cows and calves are all housed now and on baled grass silage. We began breeding two weeks ago, with 50 cows served to date. The plan is that we will breed for another three and a half weeks to keep calving compact.
Store yearlings are on the stubble oat ground which was under-sown with grass and clover. We have subdivided 34 acres into four blocks, and though there has been a lot of wet weather of late they have gotten on well grazing.
The hope is to keep these out on this ground until later November and then house. I did consider feeding out some silage in the field to extend out grazing, but with conditions so wet I’m holding off.
System Organic suckler to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 307
Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 15
Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 25
Peter Doyle – Derrypatrick Herd, Co Meath
Weaning was completed on 28 October, having staggered our weaning across the month. Cows were weaned indoors and then turned back out to grass to clean up after weanlings, but conditions are too wet now so all cows are indoors.
Our weanlings remain at grass, and we are hopeful that they’ll stay out for the remainder of the month. We have some paddocks of 1,400kg DM/ha that weanlings are heading into right now, and if we were not to graze these there would be a lot of dead grass in them next spring and clover would be smothered out. Calves have been achieving 0.65kg of liveweight gain/day, which is similar to the thrive they would do indoors, with 2kg meal fed/head/day.
System Suckler to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 724
Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 21
Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 17
Shane McGuinness – Newford Herd, Co Roscommon
Bull weanlings have gone to the outblock to graze off covers there, and we hope to keep them there until 5 December. They are grazing covers of 1,700-1,800kg DM/ha and we are splitting paddocks to minimise damage, as with the smaller numbers we’re trying to limit paddock residency to three days.
It’s a similar case for the heifer weanlings on the home block, with covers slightly higher at 2,000kg DM/ha, the aim again being to keep these out until the first week of December.
Both bulls and heifers are being fed 1.5kg/head/day of concentrates at grass. Store cattle are continuing to do well, with second-cut 76 DMD silage and 5kg of concentrates being fed/head/day.
System Suckler to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 1,038
Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 16
Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 12