Herd Tasks: Your weekly farming checklist
Request a silage analysis for nutrients and minerals. This will make doing a feed budget much easier, as an accurate dry matter will allow you to accurately allocate silage stocks over the winter.
Monday, September 29 - Sunday, October 5
- Prioritise grass at this time of year based on animal performance.
- Continue to stretch rotation lengths and bank grass for October and early November.
- Consider housing advanced stock to stretch grass for others.
- Request a silage analysis for nutrients and Minerals. This will make doing a feed budget much easier, as an accurate dry matter will allow you to accurately allocate silage stocks over the winter.
- The first-cut silages I have tested recently are showing low protein percentages unless they were cut early in May, while second cuts are exceptionally dry.
- Some silages are high in ash due to poaching last spring, resulting in clay being raked into swarths and picked up.
- Many late first-cuts are dry and those being fed out at present are tending to heat and get mouldy at the pit face.
- Autumn calving is now in full swing — ensure newborn calves get sufficient colostrum within the first six hours of life.
- Many have begun creep-feeding spring calves — make sure that the concentrate being fed contains good-quality ingredients to encourage intake.
- Get calves to be weaned, castrated, and dosed well in advance.
- Young calves/weanlings on grass are not thriving well unless they are being fed meal or are getting a fresh pick of grass regularly.
- Calves are doing well if sufficient grass is being fed and they are getting a fresh paddock regularly, but continue to feed them some concentrates from now until housing to achieve target gains.
- Watch that cattle on heavy feeding are not getting acidosis Look for loose dungs, cud balls, drooling of saliva and lameness.
- Cattle to be finished off grass should be fed some meal to achieve a good cover at this stage of the year. Low-protein, high-energy meals are sufficient for this purpose.
