Beef farmers taking stock

Many farmers are measuring the effects of a weather extreme ‘‘double-whammy’’ as they take stock of what fodder they have in their yard and, more importantly, what they need for the coming winter.

Undeniably, the drought over the last two weeks has hampered farmers’ efforts to conserve fodder for the coming winter. Many second cuts were reaching the halfway point of their growing period and were suddenly hit by severe drought which not only stopped growth but, in many cases, also caused some crops to reduce due to severe drought stress. As a result, some farmers are choosing to graze their half-grown second cuts, some are deciding to cut them at a reduced yield and the remainder are choosing to let them grow in the hope that rain can rejuvenate growth.

As bad as the current problem is on its own, it has undoubtedly been compounded by the worst spring weather in many years. Storm Ophelia and the beast from the east combined to extend the winter period by several months which resulted in many farmers running out of fodder completely.

Furthermore, when the weather did pick up, first-cuts were almost two weeks behind their closing-off date and this pushed back cutting dates and reduced quality.

It is fair to say that Irish farmers have undoubtedly experienced one of the most difficult years in recent history in terms of fodder conservation and building of fodder stocks.

Co Cavan

At the moment, I’m well back on what I should have in the yard, but I always try to be optimistic so I feel I’ll still be able to make up the deficit before the start of the winter. For my first-cut, I made just over 30ac for the pit but this was well back on yield. The biggest positive for me this year, however, is that I have taken up the same 30 acres for a second cut when in previous years I wouldn’t have closed off as much. Growth wise, it hasn’t done very much for the last week so I plan to cut it as soon as possible and put it in the pit as well.

Last year, I found I had very heavy covers in the back-end and utilisation was way down as I was trying to graze them. This year, all going to plan, I’m hoping to take out around 15 acres of bales as a third-cut in the back-end which will serve me well.

In an average year, I would expect my winter to be between three and four months. I always say that I would expect to have young stock out on Valentine’s Day and some years I’ve even had cows and calves out by then. I’m not saying it is very dry land but I just wouldn’t be afraid to turn them out if I got the chance. After last year, however, my winter feed budget has been calculated on the basis of a six-month winter.

Co Limerick

To be honest I wouldn’t be happy with the fodder I have so far. I made 34ac of first-cut and it was very light but the reason I cut it was to get the second-cut growing and I put 100 units of N and cattle and pig slurry on it. As it turned out, the second-cut has completely failed with ground now completely burned. I am now looking at grazing my second cut and then putting a bag and a half of CAN on it when the weather turns, hopefully.

My plan at present is to hold on to the feed I have made for the winter and to buy what I need now to keep the cows fed. To date, I have purchased 30 round bales of hay at €30 per bale and I also got 14ac of a light, standing meadow, which I hope to get around 90 bales off.

I bought 34 bales of straw over the weekend and I was so happy to get them, I didn’t even ask what price they were but I’m expecting them to be in or around €25 to €30 per bale. I hope to get another 20 bales before the end of the harvest and I have eight bales left from last year which brings my straw stocks to over 60. This will be enough for bedding for the winter.

Over the last while, weanlings have also been getting creep in an effort to reduce their dependency on the cows.

Co Clare

So far, I have made 33 acres of first-cut silage which I put into the pit. On top of that, I managed to get a good amount of surplus bales out; 55 earlier in the year when we had a good burst of growth, and another 14 bales more recently. I also made 31 bales of hay in the fine weather.

The problem now, however, is that I am feeding both the hay and silage bales back to stock in an effort to slow down the rotation. At the moment, I have a small amount of strong grass covers. By right, cows would only be in grazing these for a day and a half, however I am trying to keep them in these paddocks for up to four and five days if I can.

I have 33 acres of second-cut growing for the last five or six weeks. In an ideal world, I would be letting this grow for another two weeks but as far as I can see, a lot of this is actually going backwards so I think I will cut it as soon as possible. I have six acres of very stemmy grass which I can either strip-graze or cut and bale to use as roughage for cows around calving, depending on how much worse things get.

In terms of straw, supplies are looking bad. I reckon I will need about 60 round bales of barley for bedding and another 20 large squares for feeding but right now, I don’t know where I am going to get this from. I’ve heard it is costing €20 to €25 off the field too which makes things worse.

Tullamore farm

So far, we have made 800t of silage and another 135 bales of wrapped silage. On top of that, we have about 200t left from last winter which looks like it will prove critical for the winter coming.

For the remainder of the year, we are still hoping to get another 210t of pit silage from 35ac of a second cut and a further 150 bales if the growth picks up again soon. This would leave us with enough silage for our winter budget in theory, but we are currently feeding a large amount of silage bales at grass. We estimate that of the 135 bales made, we will only have around 50 left by the end of this drought, so all in all, that would leave us facing a deficit of approximately 50t facing into the winter. On the straw front, we have made contact with some local suppliers but as of yet, none are able to guarantee a supply of straw.

Water is becoming a major problem for the farm here too. The home farm has ample supply, but the out farm is running dry. To tackle this, tanks of water are being filled in the homeyard and brought to the out farm on trailers before being emptied into the drinkers. All of this is putting pressure on the farm, labour wise.

Plans for the near future include grazing reseeded ground. It is beginning to struggle so we are hoping to graze it with lambs in order to stimulate some growth back into the plant.