Tulla in east Clare was the venue for this week’s spring grass walk. Michael Hayes is milking 177 cows on a 46ha milking block. Building work on the farm delayed the start of breeding last year, so calving is a bit later than normal this spring. The due date was 13 February but Michael had 50 cows calved on Tuesday. He intends to bring the planned start of calving back to the first week of February in 2020.
The Hayes farm can be divided into three almost equal sections. One-third of the farm is good dry land on a slope. One-third is peaty land over limestone rock, which is mostly free draining. The final one-third is rocky land near the lake which can be wet when the water table rises. Michael alternates grazing between the three sections depending on the weather and time of year.
Michael Hayes, Tulla, Co Clare.
“The cows were on the hill last night but I moved them at around 10pm to the peaty section
because it was raining heavy. I find that when cows are on the slope, any bit of rain at all will make it slippery and they’ll do damage. The peaty land can take a hacking and recovers fast – it’s my go-to area when land gets wet,” Michael says.
Despite having less than one-third of the herd calved to date, Michael has 17% of the farm grazed and is on target to have 30% grazed by 1 March. Twenty springing heifers and dry cows were run with the milking cows for the past fortnight but were taken out this week and now it is just milking cows out.
To get 30% of the farm grazed, he needs to graze around 0.7ha per day for the rest of the month of February. At an average pre-grazing yield of 1,100kg/ha, this means there is 770kg of grass available to the herd per day. If an average of 80 cows are out for the rest of the month, that’s 10kg of grass available per cow per day, which is exactly what the herd needs to eat.
Michael says that if the weather turns wet he will move the cows to drier paddocks which have a higher grass cover so this will slow down the progress through the area. But with a good forecast, wet weather shouldn’t be a big problem for February anyway.
Cows are being milked once a day and are out day and night. They are milked in the morning and let out to grass and are moved to their night allocation just before it gets dark in the evening. Cows will be brought into the shed if needs be, but the plan is to leave them out if at all possible. Michael will go back to twice-a-day milking on 5 March.
Michael Hayes' cows grazing the peaty section of the farm during heavy rain on Tuesday.
“Once-a-day milking takes the pressure off during the busy calving period in February. It’s less stress on cow and man and what we lose in milk yield we make up with higher milk solids. Somatic cell count is not a problem,” Michael says.
The average farm cover is 1,142kg/ha so there is loads of grass available to the herd. The expected calving rate is high at 86% due in the first three weeks and when combined with a high stocking rate, this means that the demand for grass will be high, so Michael needs it all.
“The plan is to feed 2kg or 3kg of meal per cow. We shouldn’t need to feed silage but if we have to, we will. While the last two days have been wet, the weather so far has been good but there’s a long time to go until mid-April.”
The Hayes farmyard and paddocks that have already been grazed.
Growth rate
Local Teagasc adviser Aidan Bugler said that in 2018, 10.25t/ha of grass was back calculated as being utilised on the milking platform which he says corresponds to a growth rate of 13tDM/ha.
He said that over the whole farm, an average of 9.5t/ha was utilised which was good, considering the challenging weather in 2018. A total of 770kg of meal was fed per cow in 2018 and milk solids production was 1,320kg/ha.
A new shed with 65 cubicles and feed space for over 100 cows was built last year. Michael has turnover feed barriers, which allows him to lock cows away from silage. He’ll use these when on-off grazing during periods of wet weather to keep cows away from silage, to get them to have an appetite for grass when they do go out.
One of the biggest problems Michael has on the farm is with swans and geese. At the moment there are around 50 swans on the farm, but at times there could be 50 geese on the farm too. Over the course of the winter and spring, they eat a lot of grass, grazing it down the base and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
It’s not only the swans that clean out paddocks well on this farm – what has been grazed by the cows so far has been really well grazed.
Most of this area has been spread with 3,000 gallons/acre of slurry and is back growing again ready for grazing in April. During periods of wet weather, Michael will walk cows in single file to get to the back of the paddocks.
At the moment, he is walking cows across the paddock to get to their allocation and this is working well. He will leave cows near the road for the night grazing, to make it easier to get them out of the paddock if they need to come in at night.
On fertiliser, 34kgN/ha was spread on 4 February and Michael will go with another 40 to 50kgN/ha in early March. Grass10 project leader John Maher said that grass is not short of nitrogen now, but that spreading fertiliser now is priming the grass for future growth and recovery post-grazing.
Questions
It was asked if it’s better to graze 40%, rather than 30% in February. John Maher said that it was, but it’s not for everyone.
“The more you graze in February the more grass you will grow over the year, but you need to be measuring grass weekly if you are going to graze more than 30% in February and you should never go below an average farm cover of 500kg/ha in late March and April, so you must be prepared to plug the gap with feed if necessary,” John says.
Are the targets different for those on wet land? “Getting 30% of the farm grazed in February is probably too ambitious for those on heavy land. Generally speaking, any land grazed in February is a bonus on wet land, but all of the farmers in the Heavy Soils Programme have cows out grazing now, so they are grabbing it when they can. The general advice for those on heavy land is to have one-third of the farm grazed by 15 March, graze another third by 1 April and to start the second rotation on 15 April,” John says.
Read more
Dairy management: will you get 30% of the farm grazed?
Dairy management: once a day, preventing milk fever and calf movement rules
Tulla in east Clare was the venue for this week’s spring grass walk. Michael Hayes is milking 177 cows on a 46ha milking block. Building work on the farm delayed the start of breeding last year, so calving is a bit later than normal this spring. The due date was 13 February but Michael had 50 cows calved on Tuesday. He intends to bring the planned start of calving back to the first week of February in 2020.
The Hayes farm can be divided into three almost equal sections. One-third of the farm is good dry land on a slope. One-third is peaty land over limestone rock, which is mostly free draining. The final one-third is rocky land near the lake which can be wet when the water table rises. Michael alternates grazing between the three sections depending on the weather and time of year.
Michael Hayes, Tulla, Co Clare.
“The cows were on the hill last night but I moved them at around 10pm to the peaty section
because it was raining heavy. I find that when cows are on the slope, any bit of rain at all will make it slippery and they’ll do damage. The peaty land can take a hacking and recovers fast – it’s my go-to area when land gets wet,” Michael says.
Despite having less than one-third of the herd calved to date, Michael has 17% of the farm grazed and is on target to have 30% grazed by 1 March. Twenty springing heifers and dry cows were run with the milking cows for the past fortnight but were taken out this week and now it is just milking cows out.
To get 30% of the farm grazed, he needs to graze around 0.7ha per day for the rest of the month of February. At an average pre-grazing yield of 1,100kg/ha, this means there is 770kg of grass available to the herd per day. If an average of 80 cows are out for the rest of the month, that’s 10kg of grass available per cow per day, which is exactly what the herd needs to eat.
Michael says that if the weather turns wet he will move the cows to drier paddocks which have a higher grass cover so this will slow down the progress through the area. But with a good forecast, wet weather shouldn’t be a big problem for February anyway.
Cows are being milked once a day and are out day and night. They are milked in the morning and let out to grass and are moved to their night allocation just before it gets dark in the evening. Cows will be brought into the shed if needs be, but the plan is to leave them out if at all possible. Michael will go back to twice-a-day milking on 5 March.
Michael Hayes' cows grazing the peaty section of the farm during heavy rain on Tuesday.
“Once-a-day milking takes the pressure off during the busy calving period in February. It’s less stress on cow and man and what we lose in milk yield we make up with higher milk solids. Somatic cell count is not a problem,” Michael says.
The average farm cover is 1,142kg/ha so there is loads of grass available to the herd. The expected calving rate is high at 86% due in the first three weeks and when combined with a high stocking rate, this means that the demand for grass will be high, so Michael needs it all.
“The plan is to feed 2kg or 3kg of meal per cow. We shouldn’t need to feed silage but if we have to, we will. While the last two days have been wet, the weather so far has been good but there’s a long time to go until mid-April.”
The Hayes farmyard and paddocks that have already been grazed.
Growth rate
Local Teagasc adviser Aidan Bugler said that in 2018, 10.25t/ha of grass was back calculated as being utilised on the milking platform which he says corresponds to a growth rate of 13tDM/ha.
He said that over the whole farm, an average of 9.5t/ha was utilised which was good, considering the challenging weather in 2018. A total of 770kg of meal was fed per cow in 2018 and milk solids production was 1,320kg/ha.
A new shed with 65 cubicles and feed space for over 100 cows was built last year. Michael has turnover feed barriers, which allows him to lock cows away from silage. He’ll use these when on-off grazing during periods of wet weather to keep cows away from silage, to get them to have an appetite for grass when they do go out.
One of the biggest problems Michael has on the farm is with swans and geese. At the moment there are around 50 swans on the farm, but at times there could be 50 geese on the farm too. Over the course of the winter and spring, they eat a lot of grass, grazing it down the base and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
It’s not only the swans that clean out paddocks well on this farm – what has been grazed by the cows so far has been really well grazed.
Most of this area has been spread with 3,000 gallons/acre of slurry and is back growing again ready for grazing in April. During periods of wet weather, Michael will walk cows in single file to get to the back of the paddocks.
At the moment, he is walking cows across the paddock to get to their allocation and this is working well. He will leave cows near the road for the night grazing, to make it easier to get them out of the paddock if they need to come in at night.
On fertiliser, 34kgN/ha was spread on 4 February and Michael will go with another 40 to 50kgN/ha in early March. Grass10 project leader John Maher said that grass is not short of nitrogen now, but that spreading fertiliser now is priming the grass for future growth and recovery post-grazing.
Questions
It was asked if it’s better to graze 40%, rather than 30% in February. John Maher said that it was, but it’s not for everyone.
“The more you graze in February the more grass you will grow over the year, but you need to be measuring grass weekly if you are going to graze more than 30% in February and you should never go below an average farm cover of 500kg/ha in late March and April, so you must be prepared to plug the gap with feed if necessary,” John says.
Are the targets different for those on wet land? “Getting 30% of the farm grazed in February is probably too ambitious for those on heavy land. Generally speaking, any land grazed in February is a bonus on wet land, but all of the farmers in the Heavy Soils Programme have cows out grazing now, so they are grabbing it when they can. The general advice for those on heavy land is to have one-third of the farm grazed by 15 March, graze another third by 1 April and to start the second rotation on 15 April,” John says.
Read more
Dairy management: will you get 30% of the farm grazed?
Dairy management: once a day, preventing milk fever and calf movement rules
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