High-meal diets carry significant health warning
Where there is some grass, silage, and straw, a dairy cow diet could be 6-7 kg of dry matter (DM) from grass; 7 kg fresh weight of ration, 3 kg fresh of soya hulls/palm kernel, and 2-3 kg fresh of straw (chopped).
But without enough grass, silage, and straw, the meal input is very high.
A nutritionist should be consulted before embarking on such a diet, which carries a significant health warning — there is a big risk of digestive upsets if it is not managed correctly.
To check animals are getting enough fibre: the targeted number of chews per regurgitated cud bolus is 70; check for milk fat dropping, loose dungs, displaced abomasums, and the minimum 21% Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) from forage.
If feeding very high levels, you need to be diet feeding, or feeding four times a day
The general short term advice for feeding cattle (dairy and beef) is to prioritise grass for milking cows, suckler cows with calves, and stock for finishing off grass this summer.
Target a rotation length of 25 days for the second rotation, grazing 1/25th of the available grazing area per day. For example, if 50 hectares is available, allocate 2ha per day. This can be changed, as grass growth improves. With pre-grazing covers of 400-600 kg of dry matter per hectare (DM/ha) at the beginning of the second round, the allocation per livestock unit per day will be driven by stocking rate.
At a high stocking rate (3 livestock units/ha), assume a grass allocation of 5-8 kg of DM/LU for pre-grazing covers of 400-600 kg DM.
At low stocking rate (2 LU), assume a grass allocation of 8-12 kg DM/LU for pre-grazing covers of 400-600 kg of DM.
Delay the closing of silage ground, especially where this area can be grazed by stock.
Straw and meals
Animals that can be put on straw and meals are dry cows (straw and 3-4 kg of meals); young stock (straw and 3-4 kg of meals); replacement heifers (straw and 4 kg of meals); and calves (2-3 kg of meals).
Replacements
Replacement heifers should not be neglected; feed ad lib silage and 2-3 kg of meals.
If replacement heifers are on limited grass, feed 1-2 kg of meals.
In general, every 1 kg of ration will replace 1 kg of grass dry matter or 6-7 kg fresh weight of grass silage
Advisers have suggested diets to cope with various situations of feed shortage.
With limited grass but no silage, cows yielding 23-24 litres can get 6-7kg of meals (16% protein) with 8kg of dry matter (DM) grass (half the normal grass).
This is the minimum amount of roughage the cow needs, the grass will all be eaten within three to four hours of turnout.
If in doubt, offer a forage and see if much is eaten.
With limited grass and bad quality silage (60% DMD), cows can get 6-7kg of meals (16% protein) with 5-6kg of DM from grass and 4-5kg of DM from silage (eaten within six hours).
With no grass and bad quality silage (60% DMD), cows can get 6-7kg of meals and 2kg of beet pulp/soya hulls, with 8-9kg of DM from silage. Feed the pulp/hull as a third feed in the middle of the day
With no grass and limited bad quality silage (60% DMD), cows can get 5kg of meals (14%), with 6.5kg of DM from silage, 1.5kg of straw, and 2kg of beet pulp/soya hulls.
In this situation, you can only milk once a day.
If you try to milk twice a day, cows will lose too much condition. Meal feeding levels must be maintained, to maintain cow condition.
In these cases where grass is scarce or where farms are currently grazed out, forage (grass or silage, or grass plus silage) intake should be maintained to avoid sickening stock with too much ration.
Body condition score must be maintained pre-breeding — or fertility will be reduced. The condition score target is 2.75 at the start of breeding.
Don’t feed more than 1.5kg of straw/day to milking cows.
Feed high-energy, low protein rations (UFL about 0.93, 14% crude protein). Don’t forget the minerals.
Nitrogen fertiliser
It takes at least two weeks after the weather improves before grass supply comes back to near normal levels.
The amount of nitrogen (N) to have applied by early April on grazing ground was about 60-70 units/acre (could have been a combination of slurry and fertiliser).
As soon as possible, N fertiliser should be spread to have 90-100 units/acre out by May 1.
Some farmers may argue that this is excessive. However, any extra grass generated can be made as baled silage. This is important in a year with little or no silage left.
