Signpost: TB testing didn't bring the news we wanted, but we'll manage
Stock Out, Soon, We Sean Have Writes Plans Still Are And Anything All No To House
Conditions are fairly good here as we are coming close to the end of the grazing season. All stock are still out, and we have no plans to house anything soon.
We like to have over 85% of the platform closed for the first of November as we find it hard to grow any more than 200kg of grass over the winter months. This has always been the case even before we started reducing fertiliser and using clover in the paddocks.
The last two paddocks to be closed will be the multi-species paddocks. As the leaves are on, the herbs can shade the clover over the winter months, which is not good for the clover, unfortunately. The clover in the sward is more noticeable than at any other grazing. It’s now 50 days since grazing. It’s recommended to extend rotation for clover stolen development at the back end of the year.
When measuring multi-species grass, we use a dry matter percentage, three points below a grass sward. A low dry matter would be one of the contributors to bloat, along with lack of fibre and hungry cows. So, obviously, this is a high-risk period.
We will graze this by day only, which should hopefully eliminate any bloat risks. So far, these reseeded paddocks have grown nearly 7t with 116kgN/ha. I would expect to use less nitrogen next year.
So far, growth is back 1.5t for the year to date, but this seems to be the norm for everyone this year. Everyone is blaming the north-western wind that blew for most of the summer. I went to a lot of matches over the summer, and I can tell you that every night, we were talking about how cold it was.
We had our first reactor in a TB test in over 25 years lately. Two cows went down. One was in her ninth lactation, and the other in her first. I knew we were riding our luck as it’s quite common around these parts, usually in small numbers, so hopefully, we’ll get over it soon. If all goes well for us and we have no more reactors, we will have most of the cows calved next spring before we get clear again.
We must put in some extra accommodation for calves before the spring. There is room in a corner of the hay barn; it shouldn’t take too much work. For now, I’m going to be positive and say that with a bit better organisation, 30 or 40 extra calves will be manageable. I hope!
- Sean Moher is a Signpost dairy farmer based in Mitchelstown, Cork.
