Clover has been incorporated in many farms this year and while it has many benefits, it also causes issues around bloat.
Clover swards can greatly reduce the need for chemical fertiliser and increase milk solids production by 30kg, however issues with bloat in cows continue to be seen on many farms, with the recent burst in growth leading to a number of cases.
Bloat
Teagasc hosted a farm walk earlier this week on the farm of John and Brendan Walsh in Ballylooby, Co Tipperary.
John and Brendan have increased amount of clover in their swards, with 63% of the farm now having clover.
In the last number of weeks the farm has had issues with bloat in cows, which has resulted in the loss of one cow and 11 other cows needingtreatment.
Issues began after the recent dry weather broke and a big increase in growth was experienced.
Another farmer at the event said that he had lost five cows in recent weeks to bloat and that this issue needs to be highlighted more. He said the loss of these cows was having a severe impact on his mental health.
John stated that the day the issue with bloat occurred he spent hours walk through the cows; he said he would have driven to Dublin to collect something to stop the issue if he had to.
He added that although clover has it issues, we either learn to work with or have lower grass growth.
Preventive measures
Due to the recent issues with bloat on the farm, John and Brendan have introduced a number of control measures.
Both John and Brendan said that bloat oil has little effect at this time of the year due to reduce water intake of cows.
Instead, they have introduced a number of other preventive measures, the first measure is that when cows enter a new paddock they are given a milking break, which means they are given a small area of the paddock.
This is done when cows enter a new paddock for the first time, so if they are hungry they don’t gorge on the clover.
Once the cows have been in the paddock for a few hours the fence is removed and they have access to the rest of the paddock.
John and Brendan both believe that another issue is the lack of fibre in the sward, which is why cows are offered two straw bales.
“Once we offered cows the straw they went mad for it, they were eating it like it was silage,” said John.
“The grass is currently like aftergrass so it showed to use that the lack of fibre was an issue.”
The measured used by John and Brendan have resulted in no more cases currently, but they did note that they are continuously monitoring cows.