Over 300 farms have now completed and submitted a fodder budget, with an average of just over four months of feed available on those farms at present.

306 farms have submitted fodder budgets via Teagasc's Pasturebase platform.

169 of these farms are located in Munster, 99 are located in Leinster, and 38 are in Connacht and Ulster.

According to data presented by Teagasc at yesterday's stakeholder meeting on the fodder situation, there is an average of about 4.1 months worth of feed available on these farms at present.

These figures breakdown on a provincial basis as 4 months for Leinster, 4.2 months for Munster and 4.4 months for Connacht and Ulster.

On a more regional basis, counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois and Kildare together have the lowest amount of feed on farm at the moment, at about 3.6 months.

Meath and Louth together have 3.9 months of feed available.

There is 4.2 months of feed available in the Longford, Offaly and Westmeath region; and the Wexford and Wicklow region.

In Munster, feed availability is lowest in Waterford, at 3.5 months, while surveyed Tipperary farms are running at 3.9 months of feed availability at present.

Co. Kerry is in the best shape at the moment, with 5.4 months of available feed.

Cork, Limerick and Clare are sitting between 4.2 and 4.5 months of feed.

Apart from the fodder budgets, Teagasc data from surveys carried out by its own advisors show that, as of August 15, 14% of farms around the country are experiencing a "significant" fodder shortage.

54% of farms are currently up to 20% short of fodder, while only 8% of farms are in a fodder surplus.

According to the information provided by Teagasc, farms need a minimum of five months of feed, or between 5.5 and six months in some areas.

The data shows that daily grass growth is down considerably at the moment, running at around 30kg of dry matter (DM) per hectare per day, compared to about 60kg DM/ha/day at the same point last year (last year's figures was in line with the average for the last 10 years).

In the coming week, grass growth is set to be as low as 11kg DM/ha/day in counties Wicklow and Wexford; 10kg DM/ha/day in Co. Carlow; and 9kg DM/ha/day in Co. Kildare.

If the worst impacted counties - Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Kildare, Wicklow and Wexford - are grouped together, they have an average farm cover of 408kg DM/ha, the lowest of any region.

This works out at 162kg DM/cow.

In these six counties together, cows are currently being fed 9kg DM of grass (the lowest level of grass feeding in the country); 5kg DM in concentrates (the highest level in the country); 5kg DM in silage (the highest level in the country); and 53% of the cows' diets are supplement (again, the highest figure for any region in the country).

Costs

The Teagasc figures show that the cost to farmers of all this additional feeding works out at €95/t of DM for grass, €350/t for concentrates, and €250/t of DM for grass silage.

This means that current average feeding costs for livestock in Ireland are running at €4.40 per cow per day, when that figure should be €2.50 this time of year.

That is an additional €190/day for a 100-cow herd; with a farm of this size paying €5,320 per month to feed their animals.

Teagasc said monitoring of the fodder situation will continue, through on-farm assessments to be carried out next week, ongoing monitoring through Pasturebase; and additional farmer client surveys on fodder supplies.