While production on spring-calving dairy farms is beginning to wind down, cow management cannot be forgotten.
Recent weeks have seen grass growth improve on farms and once again, the focus for farmers is building average farm covers (AFC).
Production from herds should be decreasing at a rate of 2.5% per week ahead of drying off.
Cow management
On many farms, AFCs are lower than what would be considered ideal for this time of year.
However, growth has been improving and grazing conditions remain good on the majority of farms.
On farms where production is dropping by 2.5% per week and where growth is sufficient, farmers should avoid feeding extra concentrates or silage.
It is important to monitor the reduction level of production to avoid excessive financial loss from lost milk sales.
In late lactation, the aim is not to increase production from cows, but to obtain a steady decrease in production levels.
Because of this, where it is possible, farmers should avoid feeding extra concentrates to dairy cows.
Input costs are high and it is unlikely to make economical sense to feed cows extra concentrates.
Condition
Heading into the final stages of lactation, it is important to continue to monitor the body condition score (BCS) of cows.
Cows should not be in a BCS that is too high or too low heading into drying off.
Cows that are in a low BCS should be dried off earlier and offered high-quality silage to help them build condition.
However, they need to be closely monitored to avoid them from becoming over conditioned.
Grass growth
The situation on many farms is that covers are behind target and for many it will be difficult to close the gap.
However, there are some measures that can be taken to try and close the gap. For example, the removal of marginal cows and cows that are not in-calf from the system.
This should reduce the demand on the grazing platform and allow the gap to be somewhat closed.
Grass growth is currently holding on the majority of farms, but this is unlikely to continue as we enter into October and days start to shorten.