Grazing season is not too far away - time to plana ahead
Calving will be high on the agenda for suckler herds, but try not to take your eye of other things that may need to be done around now.
On finishing farms, drafting stock for final finish continues as the spring approaches.
Tasks in the farmyard and around the rest of the farm must be tended to.
Many will be catching up with fencing and other field maintenance tasks.
All going well, the grazing season is not too far away.
Most beef farms will be targeting a turn-out date in mid-March or thereabouts. This will obviously depend on land type, stocking density, and the great unknown of the Irish weather.
It may still be several weeks away, but plans need to be put in place to have sufficient grass at turn-out so that cattle can remain out full-time.
The current weather is providing a fantastic opportunity to get slurry out with minimal field damage.
Apart from relieving storage issues, slurry will be a fantastic aid in getting spring growth up and running.
It is important that strategies are put in place to get the very best use of slurry on your grazing ground, in conjunction with efficient use of bag fertiliser.
Treat slurry as an important asset, and try to use it wisely, to reduce your overall beef production costs.
Regular soil testing should be carried out, to optimise the slurry available to you.
I have seen some farms lately where soil results have been used to draw colour coded maps of their land, red fields being priority for slurry, orange next in line for spreading, and green having acceptable an P & K index, so requiring little or no slurry this year.
Many farmers now plan to apply slurry throughout the year after grazing, to help dramatically reduce their chemical fertiliser purchases.
With regard to bag fertiliser, it is important that you use the correct products based on the nutrients required by your ground.
If, as mentioned above, you have recent soil results, use these to devise your nutrient strategy.
Learn from fertiliser responses in recent years.
Many farmers believe that certain areas or fields are less responsive to Urea than they are to CAN.
After a sometimes difficult 2016 growing season, many are looking at cropping strategies with greater focus this year. For some, it will mean growing alternative crops such as whole crop and maize, which were generally produced successfully in 2016.
This strategy will make sure that you do not put all your eggs in the one basket — in the form of often unreliable grass silage.
Whatever you are considering, base your decisions on solid facts and figures, and not just hearsay.
Alternatives to grass silage, grown and managed well on the appropriate land, are successfully being produced cheaper than grass silage on an energy per hectare and cost per tonne of dry matter basis.
Many farmers are reporting that the first cows are calving before time, and as a result, are tending to hold the cleaning. This should settle down once you have supplied sufficient energy and minerals to dry cows, and they go closer to full term.
Watch that cows are not getting over conditioned; take action if calving gets more difficult as the season progresses.
Hygiene is important around calving; try to disinfect the calves’ navels ASAP after calving, to prevent infection. If iodine is not strong enough on your farm, discuss alternatives with your vet.
Try to clean out calving boxes as often as you can between calvings. This may not always be possible, and the best alternative is to keep a good deep fresh bed of straw under new-borns.
Try to keep the cow and calf in individual pens for as long as possible, to increase the bond between mother and offspring before they join a group of other cows and calves.
Lice seem to be common in sheds at present, and need to be controlled. Over the last few years, it has become apparent that one lice treatment over the winter is not enough.
This is most likely due to the mild weather we have been experiencing.
