Watch: BETTER Farm NI – will silage quality make the cut?

There is no substitute for good-quality silage during the winter housing period. It is better to have good-quality silage in store, and be able to restrict feeding levels, than trying to force cattle to eat larger quantities of average and poor-quality forage.

Silage swards will be starting to head out, increasing the amount of stem and reducing the amount of leaf present.

As stem is harder to digest than leaf, feed intakes are reduced. This means the animal is taking in less energy with every mouthful of silage.

Therefore, if you have poor-quality silage, cattle will not get enough energy from forage and require higher levels of supplementing with concentrates.

Every week that cutting date is delayed after seed heads emerge reduces feed quality by around four units in D-value, which is roughly the equivalent of 1kg of meal.

Spring-calving suckler cows do have a lower feed requirement than finishing cattle and autumn cows suckling a calf.

But dry spring-calving cows near the point of calving will still need average- to good-quality (66 to 69 D-value) silage, as they have reduced rumen capacity due to the growing calf inside.

Cows also have to be weaned in the correct pre-calving body condition if they are being fed average-quality silage. Second-cut silage can be used to produce forage for dry cows.

On the programme farms, the focus has always been on making top-quality silage, with grass harvested at the earliest opportunity.

With an early harvesting date, not only is quality higher but regrowth is much faster, allowing for second cut to be harvested in late July.

Silage ground can then join the grazing rotation, helping to build grass covers for grazing late into autumn.

Week in review

First-cut silage finished up

First-cut silage was harvested this week and I am pleased with grass quality and yield. We would normally cut silage at the end of May, so hopefully the earlier cutting date will increase the feed value of forage.

Yields would be up on 10t/acre, with the only light crop on an older sward. The heaviest swards are on fields that were reseeded in the past four years.

First-cut is normally targeted to finishing cattle and weanlings during the winter. I usually feed second-cut silage to dry spring calving cows, but there are times when they get first cut also.

To prevent dry cows from becoming overfat before calving, I usually mix silage with straw through the feeder wagon to dilute the feed value.

We cut 60 acres of first-cut silage in total and are aiming to harvest the same area for second-cut in July. On this farm, we harvest silage using our own equipment.

Grass was mowed on Sunday and left to wilt for 24 hours. It was raked on Monday morning and I started lifting grass shortly after. Grass is lifted using a forage wagon.

Silage ground is close to the yard, so one wagon lifting grass is sufficient and it is reasonably quick. I can lift around four acres per hour. I have been using the wagon for five years now. Before that, we harvested grass using a trailed harvester.

Silage ground was closed off nine weeks ago and received 3.5 bags of 24:6:12, so there is no risk of any residual nitrogen in the sward. For second-cut silage, I will probably go with slurry and straight CAN.

Winter feed demand

This winter, we will be carrying around 260 head of cattle, so there will be a big demand for silage. We are increasing cow numbers from 80 to 100 for next year.

There are also 50 steers and 29 heifers for finishing this winter, but the plan is to have them finished by Christmas when beef prices tend to be strong. There should be a similar number of calves weaned this autumn and over-wintered.

Budgeting for a five-month winter (November to April) for cows and weanlings and 100 days for finishing cattle, we will roughly need 870t of silage.

This is based on cows typically eating 30kg/day of silage, weanlings on 22kg/day and finishing cattle eating around 20kg/day.

We do out-winter some cattle and can get early calving cows out to grass in March, which helps to ease winter feed.

However, baled silage is fed to cattle on kale and we also need bales for late April- and May-calving cows that remain housed until they calve.

But it is better to over-estimate and have silage in reserve in case weather turns against us, delaying turnout or forcing us into housing earlier than planned.

Budgeting

We should have between 550t and 600t of first-cut silage ensiled, which will provide the bulk of winter feed. Cutting the same 60 acres for the second cut should yield around 360t of silage at 6t/acre. This is excluding any bales made from surplus grass. Weaning cows in September will allow them to gain flesh before housing, so silage can be restricted during the first half of winter, which will save on forage.

Breeding

Breeding has started in the past week. I have a group of 30 Angus-cross cows that are being bred to AI to get replacements. I am using Simmental and Blue sires on these animals. Cows are being inseminated as they come into heat naturally.

To aid heat detection, I am using scratch cards attached to the tail head of the cows. This has been a big help in picking up cows for inseminating. So far, 15 cows have been served.

The rest of the herd are being served with Angus and Charolais stock bulls. To build cow numbers, I have 18 maiden heifers running with an Angus bull.

In the past, we used to let the bulls run all summer and autumn with cows. But this year, the bulls will be removed in early August to tighten the calving spread.

We started calving in late February and still have three cows to calve. I would hope to have calving finished by early May next year.