Paddock rotation starts for Duguid's sheep

Lambing has now finished and it went reasonably well. Losses in the singles and twins were low, but we were disappointed with the losses in the triplets. Looking back, we think that this can be put down to nutrition and we’ll re-examine our triplet strategy for next year. The ewes and lambs are all off to grass now.

Initially, we had the ewes set-stocked post-lambing, but as grass growth started to take off we have put them onto their paddock rotation. Taking into account field sizes and ewe numbers this year, we have two sets of paddocks set up for them. After our experience with grass growth exploding over the last couple of years, we have tried a different fertiliser strategy with the paddock fields last month, by only spreading one half of each field. The other half of each field is being spread this week. The idea with this is to try and stagger the growth. However, with the season being what it is, the grass still got ahead of us.

Two weeks ago, we pulled the heifers off the forage rye and Italian ryegrass onto one paddock in one field, and this week we are considering putting some cows and calves onto a paddock in the other field to make the most of the growth. However, it looks like that by the time you read this, we will have cut a couple of paddocks for silage, as the grass growth rate is so high that we are in danger of losing quality.

As the heifers were taken off the rye and rygrass across the paddocks, we didn’t want to waste what was left of the forage crop, so a fortnight ago we turned out over half of the autumn cows and their calves onto it. The rest of them were put out to the swede fields to graze off what was left there. This means that we have shortened their winter by around four weeks. Looking back to the forage meeting that we held in December, we calculated that it costs us £1.94/day to keep a cow in the shed; taking those 62 cows outside has meant that we have saved £3,370 in feed and bedding.

At the time of writing, spring calving is more than halfway through. Last week, we had considered turning some of the cows and calves out to grass, but with poorer conditions on the horizon we’ve held off. We are aiming to get them out over the next week.

We have kept the cows in the same batches they were in over winter (straw and syrup, full TMR and outwintered), to keep an eye on how each of the wintering systems plays out during calving. So far, we are seeing little difference between the groups, giving us further confidence to continue to work hard at reducing winter cost.

We also had a look at the amount of minerals that we were feeding to the cows over calving. Between powdered minerals and lick buckets, we were overdoing it a little. Two of the outwintered pens are being treated differently to see if there is any difference in calving between them, due to the different mineral strategies. We will update after calving is over to see how this went.

As already mentioned, growth is taking off here and we are going to have to silage some paddocks to manage grass quality. This will help us to build more silage stocks going forward. We do have a decent surplus sitting at the back of the pit from this past winter; and two of the reseeds that we have in for this year have 3kg of Westerwolds mixed in to give us a cut of silage in mid to late summer.

We are aiming to cut our main silage crop a little earlier this year, sacrificing a little bulk for more quality. To that end, we have cut the fertiliser rates to have it all used up in six weeks, rather than our usual eight.

Forage crops have been great for our business this past year. With the reduction in days inside for the cattle, we have saved a fill of the diesel tank over winter. Our normal order is 4,500l, so at current prices the outwintering has reduced our winter fuel bill by over £2,500.

We have always grown swedes for the stock, so were more than aware of their benefits in our system. However, the hybrid brassica did a great job, and it has both saved us a significant sum of money and allowed us to turn over an old sward in a productive manner. The field that the cows were lying back on from the forage crop over winter is the next to receive the treatment. Looking across the land on the hill, we think we can create a five or six-year rotation of a similar treatment.

The catch crop behind the winter barley has also been a success this year, and we will be giving it a go again next year. It suits our rotation, as the field that we are doing it with is one that is destined for swedes, so we are not under pressure to turn it over too quickly in spring.

Coupling the savings in winter feed from having the forage crops and the high swede yields this year, we ended up with a surplus of swedes in the field. We lifted over 200t at the end of last month and some will be fed, but most will be sold.