Almost all cattle are now at grass, except for a batch of maiden heifers. Ground conditions are ideal and cleanouts are excellent. Attention now turns from feeding cattle to spreading fertiliser, spraying weeds and the like.

The first job on the spraying agenda is the new lawn. It was sowed last year just at the beginning of the drought. Considering the start it got, it has actually turned out quite well, but unfortunately it has also yielded a very impressive crop of thistles.

My better half keeps bending my ear that no matter where she puts the slide, the kids end up with a rear end full of spikes. Not a great ingredient for a fun play time. A bit of MCPA should sort the problem.

If you can make extra fodder every year, you’re probably understocked

All silage ground has been closed and slurry spread on it but hasn’t received fertiliser yet. This will hopefully be rectified in the coming days. Two thousand gallons of cattle slurry were applied and I will follow up with 4.5 bags of 18.6.12 split between two applications.

The final silage paddock has been closed two weeks earlier than last year, which is good on one hand, but obviously puts more pressure on the grazing platform.

I have almost two bays of silage left in the pit along with a few bales. This is due mostly to the fact that we had a good backend last year and cattle didn’t have to be housed overly early. Also, due to the great summer we had, I was able to harvest quite a bit of extra silage.

Buffer

Although it’s great to have this buffer, it does come at a cost. Silage is not a cheap crop to make and making more than you need is probably not that wise. But considering the variation in weather we can get up here, coupled with the variation in the length of winter, it’s needed.

Calculating how much you need can sometimes be more difficult than you might think. The biggest cost to cutting extra silage is extra fertiliser. An extra 10 acres closed at 4.5 bags/ acre is an extra 2.25t of fertiliser.

Obviously, the land being tied up and the cost of harvesting need to be considered also. However, more acres closed for silage means fewer acres for grazing. Fewer acres means higher stocking rate, more pressure and more fertiliser needed to keep grass in front of stock and obviously more cost – it’s a vicious circle.

As the saying goes, “You must make hay when the sun shines”, so in a good year, when it’s possible to make extra fodder it’s obviously a good idea to do so, but probably not a good idea to do it every year. If you can make extra fodder every year, you’re probably understocked.

In the spring of 2014, my cows went to grass with half a pit of silage left. In the spring of 2015, the pit was completely empty. I made as much silage in 2014 as I possibly could, it was just the length of the winter that meant I needed everything I had.

There’s a sweet spot in there somewhere, it’s just not always easy to find.