Herd Tasks: Your weekly farming checklist
Continue to supplement cows with calves at foot with magnesium licks, advises Brian Reidy.
- Plan for fertiliser once sufficient rain has fallen. Take account of previous applications which are yet to be utilised by the grass.
- Where do you need to soil sample this autumn? Start putting your list together.
- With so many animals housed at present, there will be extra slurry to move out before the winter. Plan where you will go with this to optimise nutrient utilisation. Remember if you are going to fertilise ground to make silage later this year, it may well be October before it is cut, and by then the slurry window will have shut.
- Aim to keep total intakes up to maintain performance.
- Herds that have increased access to silage lately have seen performance improvements. Most herds in the south and east are supplementing heavily with maize, whole crop, pit silage, quality bales or moist feeds to stretch grass and allow farm covers to improve once we get sufficient moisture. All will need to be balanced correctly to maintain performance.
- Cows due to calve soon should be kept in good condition, supplied with a pre-calver mineral and fed some meal with silage if grass has not recovered as they approach calving.
- Continue to supplement cows with calves at foot with magnesium licks.
- Keep autumn calvers on a low plane of nutrition to control body condition.
- Supplement fresh cows with magnesium licks.
- Weanling sales are up and running and, as always, it pays better to feed weanlings concentrates pre-sale. Some 4kg to 5kg of a weanling ration on quality silage will pay very well with current mart prices. Better again if quality grass is available.
