With grass growth still stagnant and limited rainfall forecast for the week ahead, farmers need to be reviewing fodder budgets.

According to Met Éireann, soil moisture deficits are still ranging between 8mm in the north-west to 88mm in the south-east.

Some rainfall is expected this week in the north-west, but conditions are still expected to be driest in the east and south-east where farms are already struggling with drought.

According to PastureBase Ireland, average growth rates fell as low as 17kg of dry matter (DM)/ha in Leinster during the week, with a national average of 30kg of DM/ha.

Average farm covers (AFC) have dropped back to 563kg DM/ha with pre-grazing yields of 1,288kg DM/ha.

This brought the average diet to 15.5kg of grass alongside 4kg of meal and 2.5kg of silage.

Some farms have been forced to allocate as little as 10kg of grass and lower, with additional silage in the diet instead.

Considering the long winter we had, reserves were already tight so farmers must be conscious of their winter fodder budget when feeding silage at this time of the year.

Fodder budget

Fodder budgets are a form of insurance to ensure you safeguard enough feed for the winter months.

Typically farms would have always planned for a five-month winter, but as longer winters and droughts become more common, extending the budget to seven months seems to be the safe bet.

That being said, harvesting enough fodder for seven months can be a difficult task.

As it stands, the silage situation across the country is extremely varied.

A handful of farms did manage to clean up a third cut during the month, and many others have two cuts in with the growth of the third heavily impacted.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of farms with only one cut done, adding pressure to the budget.

No matter how much silage has been cut, now is a good time to do the figures and see what you can afford to feed during the drought.

Using the following scenario may be helpful with drawing up a winter fodder budget.

A herd with 100 cows, 25 in-calf heifers, and 25 yearling heifers will need the following amount of feed reserves:

To complete a fodder budget, farmers need to measure silage pits (length x width x average height in metres) and count bale stocks.

The measurement of the pit can be multiplied by 1.35 to get the amount in tonnes. To convert bales to the equivalent of tonnes of silage, multiply the number of bales by 0.9. 

If you are coming in well under budget, feeding silage now, and have limited grass in your silage fields, alternate plans must be made.

Cull cows or other non-breeding stock should be offloaded to reduce demand.

It may also be worth purchasing fodder now, especially if we get another long winter ,as you will be left scrambling to source expensive feed alongside others who are in the same boat.