Last year, we changed how we went about silage, with a plan for a much earlier first cut, followed by a second cut mid to late July. However, once the first cut was secured we ran a feed budget and found that we had enough silage to see us through the winter, so made hay with the second cut instead.

This was all well and good but did not account for the weather in the spring, with us buying a small amount of silage to see us through until turnout. With this in mind, we planned to make more silage this year, to give us a buffer in the yard, should the weather go against us in the spring again. Alongside this we decided in autumn last year to make the most of our fallow and sow it out with a red clover ley for cutting once the closed period ended.

First cut this year, like last, was planned in a similar manner as 2017, with the aim being to have it secured in late May. 24:4:14 silage fertiliser was ordered ahead of time for application in early April but with a delay to delivery, it was literally lifted off the lorry and loaded straight in to the fertiliser spreader on 29 March. We applied 440kg/hectare of product to 12 hectares with the plan to cut six weeks later.

Come silage time, some of the grazing had got away from the cows and was set up for silage too. This happened in the same block last year. It gave us an extra 3.5 hectares to cut. We cut the silage on 27 May and baled it a day later. In total, first cut gave us 260 bales in the yard. We are going to send off some samples for analysis and expect that it will be as good as last year’s first cut.

Once first cut was cleared, we set up for second cut with 440 kg/hectare of 24:4:14, which meant that we would be taking the second cut in the middle of July, around the same time as the fallow was due to be cut.

These plans were made before the rain decided to disappear on us for the summer so come mid-July, there was very little growth on the second cut. We decided at this stage to leave it to grow on and fill out. We already had more than enough good quality silage in the yard at this stage and decided that letting it bulk out was better for us this year.

As part of our move toward more cattle on the unit, we had also sown the rest of the red clover fallow field in grass with a cover of half rate spring barley. This had grown sufficiently throughout the dry spell and we decided to cut it on 10 July, to give us a chance of getting a second cut from it. It was baled a day later, and we took 60 bales from 2.2 hectares. This was then fertilised with 370kg/ha of 9:20:30, to set it up for a second cut later in the season. We also planned for two cuts from the red clover, meaning we needed to cut it as soon as we possibly could. It was cut on the 16 July and baled on 17 July, along with 1.5 hectares of oats under sown with grass. The red clover gave us 50 bales and the oats gave us another 37 bales. The red clover was then fertilised with 250kg/hectare of 9:20:30, to set it up for the second cut.

We finally felt that there was enough second cut grass to cut on 6 August and with a less than 24-hour wilt, we still ended up with 200 bales of very dry silage! It has been fertilised again, with the aim to get a third cut from it before the season is finished. We are projecting around 10 bales/hectare from 10 hectares to add another 100 bales to the tally.

All in all, the current feed position is as in Table 1. Looking to the demand side, the cattle to feed and the amount of silage they will be on are in Table 2. As can be seen from the table, silage will be very tight, but we have budgeted for quite a long winter in there. The best of the first cut and the red clover will be getting fed to the growing cattle through all of winter. The in-calf heifers will get the same diet for the first half of winter and six weeks pre-calving will move on to a pre-calving diet, the same as the dry cows.

The autumn cows will be getting the more stemmy second cut and the under sown cereal forages. These will be paired with straw and syrup to keep them milking through the winter. Once the spring cows and the in-calf heifers calve down, they will get the same diet to save having to do too many mixes. This is the other consideration this winter, streamlining the workload. The last couple of years has seen several mixes and a lot of time spent in the tractor seat over winter. We are rationalising the mixes this year to make life a lot easier and to reduce the fuel bill. With the dry cows, we have decided not to ammonia treat any straw this year, instead opting to use straw and syrup for them for the first half of winter. This will give us more flexibility with the straw and should we have a surplus come spring time, it will be more saleable.

The Gammie's hope to get a third cut of silage before the end of the season.

One of our key aims running up to this winter is to try and keep stock outside for as long as possible this year. Most of our arable fields have decent fencing around them and for the early part of winter, we plan to keep the dry cows out on stubbles up until they start to make a mess. This will save some bedding and they will get a chance to graze down the fence margins as well.

The weaned commercial bulls will go on to an ad-lib diet to finish them. This will serve two purposes, one to save silage for the rest of the herd and two, to get them out of the system as quickly as possible.