With St. Patrick’s Day approaching and further rainfalls in recent days, grazing continues to be a challenge on the majority of farms.
Although grazing conditions are less than ideal, last week many farms where able to get cows to grass on a more consistent basis.
Ideally, by now most farms would have been hoping to be grazing almost full-time, but two-to-three hours post-milking remains all that it is achievable.
More rain forecast in the coming days may result in the amount of grass in cows’ diets being limited once again.
Although grazing in the spring is important, and there is plenty of research to show that reduction in dry matter (DM) grown occurs when area is not grazed in March.
However, forcing cows out when conditions and ground are not suitable will cause damage that will have to be repaired – this could have a bigger impact on DM growth during the year.
Grazing
It is very much a ‘graze what you can, when you can’ situation. Identify areas that are suitable, and focus on getting these areas grazed between the showers and when under foot conditions are suitable.
Continue to make the best use of your grazing infrastructure to prevent damage from occurring.
Again, it is important to know when to go out and when not to go out with cows, as damaging paddocks at this time of year can be detrimental.
DM intakes of cows will be around the 17kg mark for a cow that calved in the first week of February, so it is important that you are feeding them adequately.
Breeding season is approaching and cows that are under feed ahead of this may struggle to go in calf.
When cows are grazing, it is important that the deficits in DM intakes are met by silage and concentrates in the parlour.
Grass growth
On a positive note, figures from PastureBase Ireland show that grass growth rates are starting to move in the right direction – with increases in DM growth of around 10kg expected across the country.
The latest figures from PastureBase show current growth rates of 12kg of DM/ha for Leinster, 11kg of DM/ha for Munster, 9kg of DM/ha for Connacht and 8kg of DM/ha for Ulster.
The predicted growth rates for the coming days shows increases in all areas with 22kg of DM/ha predicted for Leinster, 23kg of DM/ha for Munster, 21kg of DM/ha for Connacht and 21kg of DM/ha for Ulster.