Weather: The return of wintry weather sees a return to winter grazing techniques for all farmers – 12-hour breaks, back-fencing and on-off grazing when necessary. How do you know how much grass to allocate for a 12-hour grazing? The simple answer is it depends on how much grass is in the field and how much grass the cows will eat. That depends on how much other feed they’re getting. A cow will typically eat around 18kg of dry matter per day. Subtract the meal and any silage from this, to get grass allowance. Multiply this by the number of cows to get the total amount of grass required per day and per milking. Divide this into the amount of grass in the field (area x grass cover). This will tell you how many grazings you can get from that paddock.

Most farmers end up allocating too much grass, meaning rotation length is shorter than it should be and cows leave a high residual behind them. As fields grazed today are more than likely closed until next March, they need to be clean at the base. Otherwise there’s a risk of it decaying over the winter. Ease off on the supplement, particularly silage, and get more out of the last round of grazing, where possible.

Make sure cubicle sheds are ready to go if cows need to be housed in a hurry. If feeding bale silage to stretch out the rotation, don’t use up all of the good-quality bales this autumn as you will need some for next spring. Many farmers need to have 1.25 to 1.5 bales of good-quality silage for freshly calved cows on wet days and nights during the spring.

Reducing demand: One way to reduce the demand for grass is to reduce stocking rate. There is good demand for dairy stock at present, even for late-calving cows and empty cull cows. Reducing cow numbers by 10% means that there is, in theory, an extra 2kg of grass available for the remainder of the herd. At this time of year that might mean you can feed 2kg less of supplement and keep grass intake the same. I see a lot of farmers are feeding up to 4kg of meal – it’s an expensive diet and it’s unlikely that they’re getting the response to meal that they think they are in terms of extra milk, but they’ll still have to pay the meal bill. The quantity and quality of the grass going into the cows has a far greater effect on milk yield than feeding 2kg or 4kg of meal – so focus on getting the grass right first.

Lameness: There’s a lot more lameness around now than there was a few weeks ago. It’s usually two or three weeks after the injury is picked up that the cow will present as lame, either as a sole ulcer or as white line disease. Early treatment is essential to prevent the cow from reducing production and losing too much body condition. If cows are walking long distances, lame cows should be kept separate and given TLC. Hoof parers are currently very busy. Most of the problems at this time of year are fairly easily rectified and it’s a job many farmers should be able to do themselves, if they have the right equipment.