Rainfall has become a regular feature across the country and with further showers forecast for this weekend, ground conditions are becoming difficult to manage.

Outlined below are five tips for managing cattle at grass during periods of wet weather and help prevent excessive ground damage from occurring.

1 Do not force cattle to clean out paddocks

Normally, grazing advice at this time of year is to clean swards out as tight as possible with cattle to improve sward quality when grass regrows.

However, during a spell of wet weather, holding cattle in a paddock to clean it out will make animals unsettled as they will be grazing stem, rather than leaf.

Also, after grazing a paddock for one or two days during wet conditions, swards will be soiled. Again, this makes animals unsettled.

The best advice is to keep moving animals to the next grazing block, once cattle have the majority of the sward grazed off. The residual grass can then be cleaned off in the next rotation.

2 Make greater use of temporary electric fencing

When grazing during periods of heavy rainfall, try and set the grazing platform up in 24 or 48 hours blocks using temporary electric fencing.

As cattle will have less demand for drinking water in wet conditions, there is less need to provide water access in every grazing block when working on 24-hour blocks.

However, be sure to move animals at the same time every day to avoid animals running out of grass.

3 Back fence grazed areas

Electric fencing should also be used to protect areas that have been grazed off. As these areas have lower sward covers, they are more prone to poaching from cattle, so use a back fence to keep animals off grazed paddocks.

4 Meal feeding

If grass supplies are tight, cattle will quickly become unsettled in wet conditions. Feeding 1-2kg of meal to stores and freshly calved cows can reduce their demand for grass, helping to keep animals more settled.

Ideally, cattle should be fed in a trough on a hard core area to prevent poaching, but this is not always practical, especially where cattle are grazing in a rotation.

Therefore, feeding meals along the face of the electric wire is an alternative option. Offering cattle a higher dry matter forage such as hay, can also help to keep animals settled.

5 Keep grazing blocks square

In wet conditions, cattle will tend to walk the perimeter of fields in search of shelter. Walking activity is actually increased where field boundaries, as well as electric wire fencing are set up in longer, narrow corridors.

When setting up paddocks, keeping them as square as possible will cut down on the amount of walking that cattle do, thereby limiting poaching.

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