Grass
There’s no rain forecast for the next eight or nine days at least. That’s not a good outlook for grass growth. It has already halved on many farms, albeit from abnormally high rates. But that’s not to say that everyone needs to feed meal and silage now. Do what is right for your farm.
If average farm cover is on the high side (more than 180kg/cow) you can afford to let it drop over the next week. If average farm cover is low and growth is low, then you’ve no choice but to feed. The rule of thumb is when grass growth slows, you need to slow down the rotation.
See Grass+ for advice on how much you need to feed. Feeding up to 5kg of meal is probably the first choice, followed by feeding good quality bale silage, presuming you have enough bales made.
The next option involves feeding straights such as soya hulls or palm kernel. Palm kernel can be fed ad lib with cows regulating their own intake, but it still takes management. Straights aren’t cheap at the moment so it’s hard to find value. Palm kernel expeller is available for €190/t while soya hulls are €225/t and a two-way mix of soya hulls and barely costs around €200/t.
Be careful about feeding too much meal and scouring cows with cal mag. The rule of thumb is you can double the recommended feeding rate without causing problems, but farmers feeding a high rate of cal mag in a low meal feeding rate need to be careful, ie don’t feed 4kg of meal that has cal mag intended for a 1kg feeding rate. Monitor conditions closely – the last thing you want to be doing is feeding supplement unnecessarily.
Reseeds
I walked a few reseeded fields this week. Many earlier sown fields are dirty with weeds. These will need a post-emergence spray as soon as possible. Killing docks is the priority. Establish whether the docks are seedlings or mature (a bigger problem after min-till). If in doubt, get an expert to walk the field and recommend a spray. I would forego clover if it means killing docks now.
Some later sown fields are struggling as the seedlings need moisture. There’s not a lot you can do with these fields, but consider delaying spraying a while as some sprays will check the grass and you don’t want to do that on already struggling grass seedling. I wouldn’t worry about grass seeds that have been sown recently and not yet germinated, the seeds are probably just dormant in the ground and will come when they get moisture.
It’s the time of the year when some farmers dose their cows for worms. At nearly €5 per animal, treatment isn’t cheap. Some research says that infected cows will milk more after treatment. They would need to produce over 14l of milk just to pay for the dose. This is 0.5l per day over a month, or 0.1l per day for the rest of lactation. You would want to know for sure you have an infection before spending the money. The bulk tank milk tests will tell you if there is exposure. Dung samples will tell you if you have infection. Some farmers will just treat the young cows.