Most of Leinster and north Munster were covered in snow on Sunday afternoon, while the rest of the country was battered by heavy rain.

They say that when it snows it rains twice, as snowfall wets the ground, but when it melts it wets the ground again.

Slush on semi-frozen or waterlogged ground is a disaster for grazing.

Contrast

The first week of March is in total contrast to the whole month of February, which was mostly dry and very mild throughout. However, March is proving to be a different month.

Milking cows should be either housed, or on/off grazed if needs be.

Before letting cows out to grass, they should be kept away from silage for at least four or five hours

Every farm is different. I passed Moorepark on Monday morning and cows were out grazing and not doing any damage, whereas a carpet of snow was covering the grass 20 miles north of Fermoy.

Feed best silage

If cows are housed, you should feed the best silage available to the milking cows. Make sure they have access to fresh and clean water.

The key thing is to watch the forecast and walk your fields to know when it is OK to let cows out again.

The worst thing you can do now is to prolong the period where cows are housed and miss out on feeding excellent-quality grass.

Before letting cows out to grass, they should be kept away from silage for at least four or five hours to build up an appetite.

Rude awakening

Young stock that were turned out to grass in February are getting a rude awakening now.

There are differing schools of thought as to how to manage them in wet weather.

I think splitting them up into smaller numbers and running these over larger areas will minimise damage.

When the weather improves, they can be tightened up again and made to clean out properly.

At the moment, the focus should be on preventing damage to the fields and keeping them well fed, so they avoid a setback to liveweight gain.

Calves

The key thing for calves is to ensure a dry lie. If snow entered and wetted beds in calf sheds, replace with fresh bedding.

Temperatures are not set to go too low this week, so extra feeding on account of the cold weather probably isn’t necessary.

Read more

Dairy management: feed, youngstock and milk replacer

Greenfield Kilkenny: calving and grazing on track