Herd Tasks: Your weekly farming checklist
By the end of June, two thirds of the grass will have grown on the farm for the year, so two thirds of the nitrogen should also be out by then. Picture: iStock
- Continue fertiliser application once paddocks are grazed. One unit per day is all that grazing swards can use.
- Excess nitrogen accumulates in the animal and, if not required, it consumes energy to process and excrete it. This leads to scours, poor performance, and the potential of embryo death.
- Is your choice of fertiliser the most efficient for your system? Could you grow the same grass with less of the right fertiliser?
- By the end of June, two thirds of the grass will have grown on the farm for the year — so two thirds of the nitrogen should also be out by then. Grow grass when it is growing.
- Animals on grass since March will potentially be due for their first dose soon. Use diagnostic tools and historical records. Take note of any coughing and poor thrive.
- Parlour concentrates should, by this stage, be dropping in protein as there is high protein in grass.
- Watch milk urea if your buyer provides this information.
- Feed enough to cover calcium, magnesium, and mineral requirements.
- Feeding to yield for cows and heifers always pays.
- Transition cows down off higher feed rates slowly and, if yield drops, then you have reduced supplementation too far, too fast.
- Base your feeding decisions on your farm, your herd, and your cows. Starving cows to supposedly save money is never good advice!
- Monitor yield, solids, and particularly lactose and protein to establish if they are getting and utilising sufficient energy from grass and concentrates allocated.
- Continue to supplement suckled cows at grass with magnesium to prevent tetany–bucket licks or add to water.
- Where creep is being fed, ensure birds are not soiling the feed.
- Watch later-born calves to ensure they are drinking from their mothers.
- Keep up heat detection recording. Accurate dates make management a lot easier around calving.
- Breeding heifers on grass should be supplemented with a good-quality calf or beef mineral bucket to aid fertility performance.
- Don’t feed high-protein meals to finishers on grass; they require energy to finish, and excess protein will slow down weight gain and the laying down of fat.
- Compiled by Brian Reidy, an independent ruminant nutritionist at Premier Farm Nutrition.
