The mood regarding February grazing conditions can only be described as extremely positive, with many farmers noting it to be perhaps the best February in memory.

Some heavy rain on Tuesday night and Wednesday will have forced some farmers inside, although this is hopefully only temporary, with the weather set to improve again towards the weekend.

Up until now, farmers were reporting only very minimal damage to swards, although farmers on heavier ground noted that the rain had made conditions a little stickier.

Targeting your drier ground with swards below 1,000kg DM/ha should help minimise the damage being done on farm, and with free-draining soils able to take a little more hardship, any damage done should have recovered by the next round.

Where conditions are becoming difficult, and you have run out of drier ground, the usual tricks to get grass grazed while limiting damage will have to be employed.

Paddocks should be kept relatively square. Long narrow paddocks lead to cows walking up and down a lot and causing unnecessary damage.

Some farmers are adopting leaving paddock gaps open, allowing to cows to walk back to the yard when they have run out of grass or heavy rain falls.

Silage ground should also be coming in to focus now. Where covers exist on silage ground and they are inaccessible to cows, lighter beef stock or replacement heifers should be turned out to graze off any covers built up over the winter.

This should be done sooner rather than later to ensure yields of mid-May silage aren’t affected. Grazing these swards off will improve silage quality, as well as acting as a cheaper feed for stock.

Swardwatch

  • Keep working through ground while conditions allow, with a target of 30% by 1 March for dry farms and a 10 March target for heavier farms.
  • If conditions deteriorate, limit the time spent in paddocks while maximising intake. Have cows go in to covers with an appetite and remove when they are full after three to four hours.
  • Back fence covers that are grazed. Try to minimise damage by using spur roads or narrow sacrifice strips to access the back of paddocks.

    • Farmers

    Donal Patton – Teagasc Ballyhaise,Co Cavan

    Ground conditions got a little stickier over the weekend, although we are managing to keep cows out full time for now.

    While there hasn’t been significant rain, ground isn’t drying out great. We are allocating grass in 12-hour strips on our driest ground and we are seeing some damage being done.

    We have been grazing since 13 February, with cows going to grass four days after calving. Our farm cover is lower than we’d like it, and silage will have to be introduced in to the diet at some stage.

    To date we have 8% of the platform grazed, with a target of 30% by 10 March.

    Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 1

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 7

    Average Farm Cover (kg/ha) 850

    Yield (l/cow) 14

    Fat % 5.4

    Protein% 3.85

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.33

    Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 3

    Niall Callanan – Craughwell, Co Galway

    Despite some showers, ground conditions are excellent for the time of year, and we have had cows out full time from when we started calving.

    We have 22% of the platform grazed, with us now grazing some of our wetter paddocks and getting away without major damage. Normally we would be on-off grazing, bringing cows in after a few hours.

    Cows are nailing residuals on 12-hour breaks. The whole farm has been spread with 23 units urea/acre, with 20% of this also having received slurry. The first paddocks grazed are starting to green up nicely and have about 200kg of a cover on them.

    Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 1.32

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 6

    Average Farm Cover (kg/ha) 1050

    Yield (l/cow) 21

    Fat % 4.7

    Protein% 3.79

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 1.83

    Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 3

    John McNamara – Hospital, Co Limerick

    It’s probably the best spring in my memory for grazing. We were on 36-hour blocks up until last night when we switched to a 12-hour allocation out of caution, but really it wasn’t necessary.

    We have been calving for the last two weeks, with cows going to grass after. With it being our busiest time and ground conditions being so good, we are happy to let cows graze now and feed a little silage in March if needs be.

    We have one or two heavy covers of around 2,000kg DM/ha which we will likely graze at the weekend. We were waiting to have sufficient cows calved before going in to them.

    Stocking Rate (cows/ha) 1.32

    Growth Rate (kg/day) 10

    Average Farm Cover (kg/ha) 980

    Yield (l/cow) 24.5

    Fat % 4.85

    Protein% 3.85

    Milk Solids (kg/cow) 2.2

    Supplement fed (kg/cow/day) 3