Grazing

The next three weeks are a critical time on dairy farms. Get grass right and the farm will be well set up for the big milk months of April and May. Get grass wrong and you risk yo-yoing from a big surplus to a big deficit resulting in having to feed extra meals, silage or strong grass. The net result will be higher feed costs and poorer milk solids.

You must walk the farm at least weekly over the coming weeks. The key figures are average farm cover and the cover on the first-grazed paddocks. The grass situation changes quickly at this time of year, for better and worse. The ideal situation is to graze every field once before starting the second rotation in the first week of April, and feed as little supplement as possible. If there is not enough grass back on the first grazed paddocks, then the start date of the second round may have to be delayed for a few days by putting in extra feed. But we are not there yet. For now, focus on getting 50% to 60% of the farm grazed by the middle of next week, depending on soil type. Growth rates are set to increase which will aid quicker re-growths. See more on page 38.

Tetany

There are a few reports of grass tetany over the last week. Cows need to be supplemented with magnesium in order to prevent it. The most common way is for millers to add magnesium to meal. Some farmers have been caught out in the sense that the inclusion rate of magnesium was set at 4kg of meal/cow/day but the meal feeding level was lower because grass was plentiful. If this is the case, extra magnesium should be fed, either in the water or through paddock dusting. If in doubt, feed extra meals on wet or high-risk days.

Meal

Where grass is plentiful, there are no advantages to feeding high rates of meal. Feeding 2kg to 4kg of meal per cow per day over the next month is probably close to optimum for most spring-calving herds. Energy or UFL is more important than protein when there is grass in the diet. A protein level of 12% to 14% is perfect as the crude protein in grass is currently over 20%. There is a big range in prices farmers are paying for dairy ration, often from the same supplier. It always pays to shop around, but particularly this year as the costs of inputs have gone up.

Maiden heifers: While the forecast for the next few days is for rain, the long-term forecast is reasonably positive. A lot of farmers took the opportunity to get maiden heifers out to grass last week. Early turnout does wonders for young stock. Daily gain won’t be great when they go out first but compensatory growth will kick in after a few weeks.

They can be difficult animals to manage at grass, particularly in wet weather. Best practice is to set up breaks and move every 24 hours, but if conditions are good they can get two or three days per break. Some farmers on heavy land will split them up into smaller numbers and run them over a much larger area to avoid damage, before bringing them back together when conditions improve.