Herd Tasks: Your weekly farming checklist
Aim to get fertiliser on the ground once paddocks are grazed.
- Aim to get fertiliser on the ground once paddocks are grazed and it is possible to travel as it badly needs a feed!
- Start planning for silage-remember earlier cuts provide better quality and will reduce concentrate requirements next winter.
- Maize and beet planting will commence soon, once conditions allow. They really represent value and must be considered in beef and dairy herds.
- Check water troughs regularly.
- Breeding will start in spring herds in around a month, so pre-breeding heat detections should be recorded to ensure cows are cycling normally. This will allow you to identify problems with non-cycling cows requiring attention.
- A pre-breeding scan is an excellent management tool, in my opinion, and should be considered.
- Be realistic with your expectations from first round grazing
- Grass is very low in dry matter at present and as a result, high Dry Matter intakes are not being achieved. It also has lower energy and protein than later rotations. In most cases, swards will have received no nutrition since last August, so, logically, it can't be of high feed value. Once grazing, watch that the meal you are feeding has sufficient magnesium for the rate you are feeding.
- Many will not complete the first rotation with their cows as the grass will be too strong by the second week of April. It is inevitable in these farms that bales will need to be taken off the grazing platform to get things back on track.
- Keep intakes up, and don’t try to get cows to eat more grass than they can physically consume. Keep her right in early lactation, and she will look after you for the year and beyond. Cows produce the milk, and we should never lose sight of that fact!
- Supplement suckled cows at grass with Magnesium to prevent Tetany – bucket licks or add to water.
- Watch recently turned-out calves to make sure they are drinking their mother out.
- Maiden heifers on grass should be offered a fertility mineral bucket to prepare them for the breeding season. Basic elements such as Phosphorous and Calcium are important for frame growth and saliva production/digestion.
- If heifers can't go out soon, it may be well worth considering keeping them indoors until they are bred, so as to keep them on a good plane of nutrition.
