Last year, cow numbers increased by 3.5%, yet milk output for the country fell by 0.5% up to the end of July.
Despite herds being fed record levels of meal in the first months of lactation, there was no response in milk.
The reason for this is that the amount of grass in the diet plummeted due to bad weather and atrocious growth.
Everyone can see that there is more grass in the fields than normal.
Measuring, budgeting and making decisions about grass is a key skill for all dairy farmers
The mild autumn and the mild winter have led to much higher than normal winter grass growth rates.
Recorded growth rates of 8kg to 10kg/ha/day are widespread, whereas normal winter growth rates are closer to 3kg or 4kg/day and some farm covers even go backwards over winter.
Measuring, budgeting and making decisions about grass is a key skill for all dairy farmers.
Advice on measuring and managing grass has been appearing in the Irish Farmers Journal for almost 20 years.
Teagasc has been teaching grass measurement to students in agricultural colleges for at least 15 years. However, there is still only a very small proportion of farmers who possess the skills to manage grass properly.
There is as much skill involved in measuring grass as there is in measuring the amount of meal in a bucket or silage in a pit.
It’s a straightforward exercise; you either cut and weigh a representative sample of a field, use a platemeter or estimate the cover. That’s the easy part.
In spring, the objective should be to get as much grass into cows as possible
The skill is knowing what to do with the numbers. In spring, the objective should be to get as much grass into cows as possible, grow as much grass as possible and have enough grass back on the farm for the second grazing rotation in April.
A grass budget is the only way to achieve this. By doing a grass budget, you will know what your average farm cover should be every week.
The easiest way to do a grass budget is to use PastureBase. This is the Teagasc grass measurement programme and it is currently free to use.
An example grass budget is displayed in Table 1. You need to have the following information to fill in the budget:
1
The amount of land available to the milking cows in hectares: if land is too wet to be grazed in the first rotation, then exclude this from the budget. But if land will be grazed at some point in the first round then include it.
2
The number of cows grazing: this is the average number of cows that will be grazing each week. If you’re not sure of this figure, work out how many cows you expect to have calved by the end of February. Divide this number by four to get the weekly average and add them together each week. Do the same for March, anticipating that calving usually slows down in late March.
3
Predicted growth rate for each week: in PastureBase, predicted growth rates are pre-populated based on the regional average. You can select typical growth rates from the four provinces. However, these can be overridden based on what you expect your own farm to grow, such as old versus new pasture, north facing, dry versus wet, etc. The most accurate figures to put in here are historical growth rates from your own farm.
4
When setting up the budget, you will be asked what the predicted opening average farm cover will be. To know this, you should walk your farm and measure the grass available on each paddock. Ideally, you would like the opening average farm cover to be around 1,000kg/ha. Higher stocked farms may require a higher opening farm cover.
5
The next thing to do is to predict the diet of the cows. You need to decide how much grass, meal and silage you plan to feed for each week. Generally speaking, the overall intake of cows shortly after calving is very low, at around 8kg to 10kgDM per day. This increases by about 1kg/day for every week after calving. So by the middle of February, the overall intake should be around 13kg or 14kg/day. Ideally, you want to provide as much of this intake in the form of grazed grass as possible and feed somewhere in the region of 2kg to 4kg of meal per cow per day.
6 The decisions about how much supplement to feed all depends on the average farm cover. In PastureBase, the predicted average farm cover for each week is worked out automatically. This is based on the opening average farm cover (AFC), plus what is grown and minus what is eaten by the herd. The key figure is the AFC at the end of March and the start of April. AFC per hectare should never drop below 500kg/ha. If it does, subsequent growth rates will suffer and extra feed will have to fed and cow performance will drop. The AFC should not be above 500kg/ha either as this means too much grass is on the farm.
7
The AFC at the start of April can be manipulated by changing the grass intake per cow during February and March. If the predicted AFC is below 500kg/ha in early April, then less grass and more supplement should be fed. Likewise, if the predicted AFC is above 500kg/ha in early April, then less supplement should be fed, or more stock, such as replacement heifers should be let out to graze.
Managing grass is like a game of darts
The aim is to be at 500kg/ha by early April. The score is kept weekly by measuring the grass on your farm and working out the average farm cover (AFC) and comparing this to the target for that week, as set by the budget.
PastureBase will tell you what the predicted AFC will be in April based on your actual AFC for a particular week.
If the predicted AFC is different to the target, you need to adjust your game. To win the game you must change your tactics by feeding more or less supplement.
It goes without saying that grass budgets rarely go according to plan. The weather has a massive impact on how much grass is grown and how much grass can be utilised.
But the grass budget gives you confidence when making decisions.
The easiest way to do a grass budget is to set up an account on PastureBase. The budget will then update automatically after doing a grass walk.The main objective is to graze all of the farm in the first rotation and to have enough grass back for the second rotation.Manipulate the amount of meal and silage being fed on a weekly basis in accordance with the predicted average farm cover on 1 April. Read more
Dairy management: managing grass this spring
Dairy management: weather, colostrum quality and feeding cows at night
Last year, cow numbers increased by 3.5%, yet milk output for the country fell by 0.5% up to the end of July.
Despite herds being fed record levels of meal in the first months of lactation, there was no response in milk.
The reason for this is that the amount of grass in the diet plummeted due to bad weather and atrocious growth.
Everyone can see that there is more grass in the fields than normal.
Measuring, budgeting and making decisions about grass is a key skill for all dairy farmers
The mild autumn and the mild winter have led to much higher than normal winter grass growth rates.
Recorded growth rates of 8kg to 10kg/ha/day are widespread, whereas normal winter growth rates are closer to 3kg or 4kg/day and some farm covers even go backwards over winter.
Measuring, budgeting and making decisions about grass is a key skill for all dairy farmers.
Advice on measuring and managing grass has been appearing in the Irish Farmers Journal for almost 20 years.
Teagasc has been teaching grass measurement to students in agricultural colleges for at least 15 years. However, there is still only a very small proportion of farmers who possess the skills to manage grass properly.
There is as much skill involved in measuring grass as there is in measuring the amount of meal in a bucket or silage in a pit.
It’s a straightforward exercise; you either cut and weigh a representative sample of a field, use a platemeter or estimate the cover. That’s the easy part.
In spring, the objective should be to get as much grass into cows as possible
The skill is knowing what to do with the numbers. In spring, the objective should be to get as much grass into cows as possible, grow as much grass as possible and have enough grass back on the farm for the second grazing rotation in April.
A grass budget is the only way to achieve this. By doing a grass budget, you will know what your average farm cover should be every week.
The easiest way to do a grass budget is to use PastureBase. This is the Teagasc grass measurement programme and it is currently free to use.
An example grass budget is displayed in Table 1. You need to have the following information to fill in the budget:
1
The amount of land available to the milking cows in hectares: if land is too wet to be grazed in the first rotation, then exclude this from the budget. But if land will be grazed at some point in the first round then include it.
2
The number of cows grazing: this is the average number of cows that will be grazing each week. If you’re not sure of this figure, work out how many cows you expect to have calved by the end of February. Divide this number by four to get the weekly average and add them together each week. Do the same for March, anticipating that calving usually slows down in late March.
3
Predicted growth rate for each week: in PastureBase, predicted growth rates are pre-populated based on the regional average. You can select typical growth rates from the four provinces. However, these can be overridden based on what you expect your own farm to grow, such as old versus new pasture, north facing, dry versus wet, etc. The most accurate figures to put in here are historical growth rates from your own farm.
4
When setting up the budget, you will be asked what the predicted opening average farm cover will be. To know this, you should walk your farm and measure the grass available on each paddock. Ideally, you would like the opening average farm cover to be around 1,000kg/ha. Higher stocked farms may require a higher opening farm cover.
5
The next thing to do is to predict the diet of the cows. You need to decide how much grass, meal and silage you plan to feed for each week. Generally speaking, the overall intake of cows shortly after calving is very low, at around 8kg to 10kgDM per day. This increases by about 1kg/day for every week after calving. So by the middle of February, the overall intake should be around 13kg or 14kg/day. Ideally, you want to provide as much of this intake in the form of grazed grass as possible and feed somewhere in the region of 2kg to 4kg of meal per cow per day.
6 The decisions about how much supplement to feed all depends on the average farm cover. In PastureBase, the predicted average farm cover for each week is worked out automatically. This is based on the opening average farm cover (AFC), plus what is grown and minus what is eaten by the herd. The key figure is the AFC at the end of March and the start of April. AFC per hectare should never drop below 500kg/ha. If it does, subsequent growth rates will suffer and extra feed will have to fed and cow performance will drop. The AFC should not be above 500kg/ha either as this means too much grass is on the farm.
7
The AFC at the start of April can be manipulated by changing the grass intake per cow during February and March. If the predicted AFC is below 500kg/ha in early April, then less grass and more supplement should be fed. Likewise, if the predicted AFC is above 500kg/ha in early April, then less supplement should be fed, or more stock, such as replacement heifers should be let out to graze.
Managing grass is like a game of darts
The aim is to be at 500kg/ha by early April. The score is kept weekly by measuring the grass on your farm and working out the average farm cover (AFC) and comparing this to the target for that week, as set by the budget.
PastureBase will tell you what the predicted AFC will be in April based on your actual AFC for a particular week.
If the predicted AFC is different to the target, you need to adjust your game. To win the game you must change your tactics by feeding more or less supplement.
It goes without saying that grass budgets rarely go according to plan. The weather has a massive impact on how much grass is grown and how much grass can be utilised.
But the grass budget gives you confidence when making decisions.
The easiest way to do a grass budget is to set up an account on PastureBase. The budget will then update automatically after doing a grass walk.The main objective is to graze all of the farm in the first rotation and to have enough grass back for the second rotation.Manipulate the amount of meal and silage being fed on a weekly basis in accordance with the predicted average farm cover on 1 April. Read more
Dairy management: managing grass this spring
Dairy management: weather, colostrum quality and feeding cows at night
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