The Irish Farmers Journal attended two spring grass-themed farm walks last week. One of the walks was on Tom Garry’s farm in Ballynacally in west Clare, while the other was on Philip Ruttle’s farm near Rathkeale, Co Limerick.
Neither area is renowned for early spring grazing, yet both farmers had cows out grazing last week.
This was a good achievement given the wintry weather that we had. It’s fair to say that both farmers were in the minority of dairy farmers having cows out last week, regardless of what part of the country they’re in.
Tom Garry
Tom is milking 80 cows on his 25ha milking platform overlooking the Shannon estuary in Clare. A lot of his milking platform is below sea level, with high levees keeping the water out. Despite this, some of his farm is very dry and free-draining but, equally, some of his farm is very wet. There were ponds of water in the field next to the one the cows were grazing. But the cows were doing zero damage.
This was one of the key messages from the farm walk: the importance of walking the land and assessing conditions.
“If you stood in the yard and looked out, you’d say that it was definitely too wet to graze, spread fertiliser or spread slurry,” John Maher from Teagasc said. “But because Tom walks his fields, he knows where the cows are now is dry for grazing so he turned them out.”
Tom has been out by day since 8 February. This time last year, they were out day and night and when the weather picks up Tom will let them out full-time. He was on-off grazing last week and cows are in on silage at night time. He milks them in the morning and leaves them in the yard without access to silage until 11am or 12pm. They then go out to the dry paddock with a light grass cover of about 700kg/ha.
“As soon as they lift their heads and start walking around, I will bring them in. This is usually after two or three hours of grazing. If they don’t go out hungry or if you don’t bring them in when they’re full, they’ll do damage,” Tom said.
About one third of the cows were calved on the day of the walk and 80% are due in the first six weeks, so Tom will have a busy February. For this reason, he is only milking the cows once a day until 1 March and will then go back to twice a day.
“I milked once a day in February last year as I hurt my back and just couldn’t do it twice a day. I found I was in much better form, less tired and less stressed so I’m doing it again this year,” Tom said.
When asked if it affected milk production at peak, Tom said the first cow calved in 2017 was a heifer and she ended up yielding 1,500 gallons so he didn’t think it affected production much at all. Only the earliest-calved cows are milked once a day for up to six weeks. The majority are only on it for less than a fortnight. His black-and-white herd averaged 475kg of milk solids per cow from 580kg of meal in 2017. The farm grew just over 13t/ha of grass.
Tom picks his dry fields with low covers to start off grazing. He said he wouldn’t graze heavy covers (more than 1,000kg) to start off as the cows wouldn’t have the appetite to graze them. He will go into high covers in early March or whenever land dries up a bit.
The other key thing is that his opening average farm cover, which is the amount of grass on the farm now, is high at 958kg/ha. This means that he has the grass on the farm to graze and even at his relatively high stocking rate he should have enough grass to put cows out day and night from the start along with 4kg of meal.
He is also doing his best to grow grass. He spread 30 units/acre of urea on 36% of the farm on 6 February and spread 3,500 gallons/acre of slurry on a further 34% of the farm on 8 February. The slurry was spread with an umbilical pipe and dribble bar, which minimised damage and allowed for slurry to be spread on some higher covers.
He plans to spread one bag/acre of urea on the portion that didn’t get slurry or fertiliser as soon as ground conditions allow. Tom has invested in spur roads and drainage to allow him to get cows in and out of paddocks while minimising damage.
Philip Ruttle
In Rathkeale, Co Limerick, Philip Ruttle is flying it. By last weekend, he had almost 10% of the farm grazed and nearly 70% calved. He has been on-off grazing since 22 January. Like Tom’s farm in Clare, Philip’s farm is variable but he is concentrating grazing on the drier parts where less damage will be done.
That said, it doesn’t always work out and damage was done on Monday and Tuesday nights’ grazings. Standing on the farm roadway, the damage looked minimal, but walking through it, poaching was done and holes were left throughout the field. In my view, it was more damage than I’d be comfortable with.
Unavoidable damage
“It’s more than I’d like and I do my best to avoid it but some damage is unavoidable. I live with it though as I know it’s only a very small proportion of the farm and it will heal in time,’’ Philip said.
Apart from those two small areas, the rest of the grazing was superb, with a cover of about 200kg back on the earliest grazed sections already. Philip only started milking cows five years ago, having converted from beef farming.
He is milking twice a day and cows go to grass twice a day. He starts milking at around 7.30am and holds the cows in the yard, without silage until about 9.30am or 10am. While they’re in the yard he goes off and sets up the wire for that morning’s break.
Depending on the weather and ground conditions, he brings them back into the yard either side of dinner time.
Between then and evening milking at around 3.15pm they get a small pick of silage, depending on what’s in front of the feed face. Cows go out after evening milking and are brought back in again at around 6pm. They normally have silage in front of them at night, but he said that it’s always gone by morning.
John Maher (pictured) was also speaking at this farm walk. He made the point that milking early in the evening is key. “If you milk early, it means that the cows can be brought in early, but if you don’t start milking until 6pm it means its 9pm or 10pm before the cows will be brought in and that’s not realistic,” John said.
Philip is milking 80 cows on his 34ha milking platform. His opening average farm cover, at 658kg/ha, is a little lower than he’d like and because silage is scarce he is feeding 5kg of meal per cow now.
But he is throwing everything at growing more grass. Hitting his grazing targets of 30% grazed by 4 March will automatically increase the amount of grass grown by the start of the second rotation in the first week of April. Last year, the herd sold 465kg MS/cow from 500kg of meal.
Philip Ruttle also has 100% of the farm spread with either urea or slurry. Like Tom, he got the slurry spread with an umbilical system and dribble bar. Philip plans to go again with fertiliser in early March. If the weather is suitable and depending on the field and its soil test results, he will either spread two bags/acre of 18:6:12 or 10:10:10.
About half of the farm is deficient in phosphorus and potassium so this is a target area for Philip. If the weather is wet, he will stay with urea and spread the compounds later. The reason for this is because the nitrogen element of the compounds is CAN-based, and CAN is more at risk of leaching in wet weather than urea.
Walk your paddocks and start grazing in the driest paddocks.It could be too wet for grazing, but maybe slurry or fertiliser could be spread.Graze light covers first (between 600kg/ha and 1,000kg/ha).Graze heavy covers in dry weather in early March.Cows need to go out grazing with an appetite, so lock them away from silage for a few hours prior to turnout.This doesn’t reduce their intakes, it just manipulates the time that they eat at. John Maher said that at peak, cows will only eat for 10 hours, so will eat for less in early lactation.You should have 70 units/acre of nitrogen (including in slurry) out by 1 April. Read more
Difficult weather to start off the grass season
Dairy management: milk fever, high grass covers and the weather
The Irish Farmers Journal attended two spring grass-themed farm walks last week. One of the walks was on Tom Garry’s farm in Ballynacally in west Clare, while the other was on Philip Ruttle’s farm near Rathkeale, Co Limerick.
Neither area is renowned for early spring grazing, yet both farmers had cows out grazing last week.
This was a good achievement given the wintry weather that we had. It’s fair to say that both farmers were in the minority of dairy farmers having cows out last week, regardless of what part of the country they’re in.
Tom Garry
Tom is milking 80 cows on his 25ha milking platform overlooking the Shannon estuary in Clare. A lot of his milking platform is below sea level, with high levees keeping the water out. Despite this, some of his farm is very dry and free-draining but, equally, some of his farm is very wet. There were ponds of water in the field next to the one the cows were grazing. But the cows were doing zero damage.
This was one of the key messages from the farm walk: the importance of walking the land and assessing conditions.
“If you stood in the yard and looked out, you’d say that it was definitely too wet to graze, spread fertiliser or spread slurry,” John Maher from Teagasc said. “But because Tom walks his fields, he knows where the cows are now is dry for grazing so he turned them out.”
Tom has been out by day since 8 February. This time last year, they were out day and night and when the weather picks up Tom will let them out full-time. He was on-off grazing last week and cows are in on silage at night time. He milks them in the morning and leaves them in the yard without access to silage until 11am or 12pm. They then go out to the dry paddock with a light grass cover of about 700kg/ha.
“As soon as they lift their heads and start walking around, I will bring them in. This is usually after two or three hours of grazing. If they don’t go out hungry or if you don’t bring them in when they’re full, they’ll do damage,” Tom said.
About one third of the cows were calved on the day of the walk and 80% are due in the first six weeks, so Tom will have a busy February. For this reason, he is only milking the cows once a day until 1 March and will then go back to twice a day.
“I milked once a day in February last year as I hurt my back and just couldn’t do it twice a day. I found I was in much better form, less tired and less stressed so I’m doing it again this year,” Tom said.
When asked if it affected milk production at peak, Tom said the first cow calved in 2017 was a heifer and she ended up yielding 1,500 gallons so he didn’t think it affected production much at all. Only the earliest-calved cows are milked once a day for up to six weeks. The majority are only on it for less than a fortnight. His black-and-white herd averaged 475kg of milk solids per cow from 580kg of meal in 2017. The farm grew just over 13t/ha of grass.
Tom picks his dry fields with low covers to start off grazing. He said he wouldn’t graze heavy covers (more than 1,000kg) to start off as the cows wouldn’t have the appetite to graze them. He will go into high covers in early March or whenever land dries up a bit.
The other key thing is that his opening average farm cover, which is the amount of grass on the farm now, is high at 958kg/ha. This means that he has the grass on the farm to graze and even at his relatively high stocking rate he should have enough grass to put cows out day and night from the start along with 4kg of meal.
He is also doing his best to grow grass. He spread 30 units/acre of urea on 36% of the farm on 6 February and spread 3,500 gallons/acre of slurry on a further 34% of the farm on 8 February. The slurry was spread with an umbilical pipe and dribble bar, which minimised damage and allowed for slurry to be spread on some higher covers.
He plans to spread one bag/acre of urea on the portion that didn’t get slurry or fertiliser as soon as ground conditions allow. Tom has invested in spur roads and drainage to allow him to get cows in and out of paddocks while minimising damage.
Philip Ruttle
In Rathkeale, Co Limerick, Philip Ruttle is flying it. By last weekend, he had almost 10% of the farm grazed and nearly 70% calved. He has been on-off grazing since 22 January. Like Tom’s farm in Clare, Philip’s farm is variable but he is concentrating grazing on the drier parts where less damage will be done.
That said, it doesn’t always work out and damage was done on Monday and Tuesday nights’ grazings. Standing on the farm roadway, the damage looked minimal, but walking through it, poaching was done and holes were left throughout the field. In my view, it was more damage than I’d be comfortable with.
Unavoidable damage
“It’s more than I’d like and I do my best to avoid it but some damage is unavoidable. I live with it though as I know it’s only a very small proportion of the farm and it will heal in time,’’ Philip said.
Apart from those two small areas, the rest of the grazing was superb, with a cover of about 200kg back on the earliest grazed sections already. Philip only started milking cows five years ago, having converted from beef farming.
He is milking twice a day and cows go to grass twice a day. He starts milking at around 7.30am and holds the cows in the yard, without silage until about 9.30am or 10am. While they’re in the yard he goes off and sets up the wire for that morning’s break.
Depending on the weather and ground conditions, he brings them back into the yard either side of dinner time.
Between then and evening milking at around 3.15pm they get a small pick of silage, depending on what’s in front of the feed face. Cows go out after evening milking and are brought back in again at around 6pm. They normally have silage in front of them at night, but he said that it’s always gone by morning.
John Maher (pictured) was also speaking at this farm walk. He made the point that milking early in the evening is key. “If you milk early, it means that the cows can be brought in early, but if you don’t start milking until 6pm it means its 9pm or 10pm before the cows will be brought in and that’s not realistic,” John said.
Philip is milking 80 cows on his 34ha milking platform. His opening average farm cover, at 658kg/ha, is a little lower than he’d like and because silage is scarce he is feeding 5kg of meal per cow now.
But he is throwing everything at growing more grass. Hitting his grazing targets of 30% grazed by 4 March will automatically increase the amount of grass grown by the start of the second rotation in the first week of April. Last year, the herd sold 465kg MS/cow from 500kg of meal.
Philip Ruttle also has 100% of the farm spread with either urea or slurry. Like Tom, he got the slurry spread with an umbilical system and dribble bar. Philip plans to go again with fertiliser in early March. If the weather is suitable and depending on the field and its soil test results, he will either spread two bags/acre of 18:6:12 or 10:10:10.
About half of the farm is deficient in phosphorus and potassium so this is a target area for Philip. If the weather is wet, he will stay with urea and spread the compounds later. The reason for this is because the nitrogen element of the compounds is CAN-based, and CAN is more at risk of leaching in wet weather than urea.
Walk your paddocks and start grazing in the driest paddocks.It could be too wet for grazing, but maybe slurry or fertiliser could be spread.Graze light covers first (between 600kg/ha and 1,000kg/ha).Graze heavy covers in dry weather in early March.Cows need to go out grazing with an appetite, so lock them away from silage for a few hours prior to turnout.This doesn’t reduce their intakes, it just manipulates the time that they eat at. John Maher said that at peak, cows will only eat for 10 hours, so will eat for less in early lactation.You should have 70 units/acre of nitrogen (including in slurry) out by 1 April. Read more
Difficult weather to start off the grass season
Dairy management: milk fever, high grass covers and the weather
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