After notably low grass growth rates throughout June and into July in many parts of the country, the arrival of warmer temperatures and rainfall has helped increase grass growth rates nationwide.
In the second half of the grazing season, sward quality can deteriorate as swards become stemmy and more fibrous. Keeping quality as high as possible will improve livestock performance when grazing.
As farmers will know, live weight gain from livestock at grass is the cheapest way to put weight on cattle or lambs.
Maximising livestock performance at grass will help reduce costs over the winter when it is more costly to achieve livestock weight gain.
Where paddocks are becoming strong and grass supplies are good on the farm, taking a paddock out of the grazing rotation in the form of bale silage is advisable – especially this year, with fodder concerns on many farms.
Grazing heavy grass covers with livestock is difficult to achieve a good utilisation but can be achieved through the use of strip wires.
Where paddocks have been grazed and a stemmy butt of grass has developed, topping these paddocks is advisable and will allow a more palatable, leafy grass cover to develop on the paddock.
Alternatively, some drystock farmers prefer to leave dry ewes or dry cows on these grass covers to graze them off.
Forcing young, growing cattle to graze off these stemmy covers will result in reduced intakes and will also reduce growth rates and subsequent weight gain.
Aftergrass is a great feed source for growing youngstock however, farmers should be wary when weaned bucket-reared calves are grazing lush, soft aftergrass as it can cause scouring.
Some farmers rearing calves allow them access to a fibre source such as hay or straw when grazing soft grass to help reduce the risk of summer scour in calves.
With many farmers having to buffer feed cattle silage this summer and the long winter of 2023/24, fodder reserves are depleted on many farms and farmers are being advised to complete a fodder budget to access their feed requirements for this winter.