Summer Beef Series is in conjunction with Teagasc’s DairyBeef 500 campaign
Grazed grass is the cheapest source of feed in Irish livestock production systems and maximising the levels of weight gain from grazed grass is a crucial element in the success of profitable dairy calf to beef systems.
Many stages in dairy calf-to-beef production systems can be high cost, therefore the more efficient farmers are at maximising high-quality grazed grass in the diet will lead to higher performance and profitability.
The most successful systems are those that optimise animal performance from grazed pasture and achieve a high proportion of total life time gain from grazed grass.
Farm infrastructure
Setting up farm infrastructure and the incorporation of a paddock system is fundamental to successful grassland management.
Paddock sizes should be designed to ensure it takes no longer than three days to graze out paddocks to 4.5cm, as grazing to this level will ensure high-quality regrowths. There should also be six to seven paddocks per grazing group.
A simple rule of thumb for determining paddock size is that every 1000kg animal liveweight requires 0.05ha, therefore 50 animals weighing 320kg = 16,000kg, requires 16 x 0.05 ha = 0.8ha paddocks.
Every farm should have a farm map to identify each individual paddock. When grazed paddocks should allowed it to recover for 21 days before grazing again.
Grass budgeting
In mid-season grass growth on farm can change rapidly, therefore regular measuring and budgeting is important to ensure the supply and quality of grass is maintained.
Measuring and recording on Pasturebase Ireland highlights if there is a surplus or deficit of grass on the farm and this will assist in making management decisions and put in place corrective action if needed to ensure ensures that quality grass is kept in front of stock at all times.
Where surplus grass can be identified on the farm, this paddock should be skipped for grazing and high-quality silage bales should be removed.
Ideally, surplus bales should be taken from different paddocks throughout the grazing season and not continuously from the one paddock to prevent phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) depletion.
Targeted covers
Midseason, the focus is on maintaining grass quality with targeted pre-grazing yields of 1,300-1,500 kg dry matter (DM)/ha, or approximately 8-10cm is the target for older stock with slightly lower covers of 1000-1300 kg DM/ha been desired for calves once they have transitioned.
Grazing these covers allows animals to avail of high-quality leafy grass to maximise performance.
Higher covers lead to poor utilisation and under performance. Less grass is produced on the farm by grazing lower covers.
Calves should be offered the cleanest and most palatable swards which have not been recently grazed by older animals in order to reduce the potential build-up of a parasite burden.
During the midseason the target is to ensure there is between 12-14 days of grass ahead of stock and if this is not the case corrective action is needed.
If there is less than 12 days grass in front of the animals herd demand needs to be reduced to prevent grass from running out. If there is greater 14 days ahead, surpluses will need to be removed to maintain desired pre grazing covers.
Getting to grips with grass in Co. Mayo
DairyBeef 500 participants Jarlath and Austin Ruane, who operate a calf-to-beef system just outside Claremorris Co. Mayo, place huge emphasis on grassland management and are seeing the rewards in terms of improved animal performance.
The grazing infrastructure on the farm is extremely well set up with the entire farm been serviced by an extensive network of paddocks, water troughs and roadways. This infrastructure is key for maintaining quality grass in front of stock.
Jarlath targets cover of approximately 1400 kg DM/ha for older stock all year around as this is the cover he feels animals preform best. Paddocks as set up to be grazed down to 4–4.5cm in a day as Jarlath feels obtaining a tight grazing to this level ensures the highest quality of grass to regrow.
Slightly lower covers of 1000-1250 kg DM/ha or approximately 7-8cm are targeted for calves from mid-season with a flock of midseason ewes been used to clean out paddocks that calves have grazed.
The farm is walked weekly to assess grass covers on the farm and this assists in making management decisions and put in place corrective action if needed to ensure ensures that quality grass is kept in front of stock at all times.
Where surpluses arise Jarlath wastes no time taking this grass out as baled silage will ensure grass quality is maintained but will also provide high quality winter feed for the farm.
For those interested a DairyBeef 500 calf-to-beef farm walk will take place on Thursday (July 14) at 6:00p.m. The Eircode for the event is F12E928.
Other topics to be discussed on the day include calf sourcing, animal health, the new Targeted Agricultural Moderinsation Scheme (TAMS 3) which provide grant aid to farmers for a wide variety of farm improvement measures as well as a live demo on selecting animals for slaughter.