• Overview
• Agri Feeds
  • Dairy Feeds
  • Beef Feeds
  • Calf Feeds
• Technical Advice
  • Prevention of Sub-Acute Ruminal Acidosis (SARA)
  • Balancing Spring Grass
  • Dry Cow Management
  • Managing Dry Cow Body Condition
  • Heifer Replacement
  • Feeding Breeding Heifers in the late Autumn/early Winter period
  • Drying Cows off Early
  • Herd Health & Fertility
  • Recommended Feed Additives
• Other Services

Balancing Spring Grass

By late January/early spring most cows are still on winter diets with a few hours grazing during the day. Farmers should have two thirds of the grazing area grazed by St. Patrick’s Day.

Quota or no quota some key dairy herd objectives will still need to be met from March onwards:

1. Finish off spring calving
2. Complete turn out to grass full time
3. Compact breeding season – heat detection and submissions
4. Maximise milk solids

All the above are important to a profitable year in dairy farming and are all inter-related and inter-dependent.

Finishing off spring calving successfully means keeping up good dry cow management. Cows calving late tend to have long dry periods and can be over conditioned at calving thus leading to problems at calving and in the early lactation. Continue to monitor dry cow body condition and adjust the diet as needs be, use a good precalver mineral suited to your herd, and maintain hygiene in calving pens and dry cow cubicles. Hygiene is essential in lying areas of dry cows to minimise mastitis, also good levels of vitamin E and selenium in the precalver mineral help reduce mastitis problems.

One can only turn cows out to grass when ground conditions are suitable, but grass in a cows diet is preferable. Match grass covers to suitable grazing time and growth rates as grass availability in the new Quota year is crucial to profitable milk sales. Cows out for suitable grazing times will optimise total intakes and reduce body weight loss. Return cows to indoor diet once the available grass is grazed off. Reducing body weight loss to a minimum is crucial to good milk solids, healthier cows and better conception rates. Maintaining body is an energy factor, if in a quota situation lower protein concentrate (16%) when in and out but maintain feeding levels to keep body condition. Cows partially grazing light covers of grass should be on indoor forages and 6 kgs of concentrate per day to hold body weight. This will minimise milk protein % drop, will hold body condition and therefore make it easier to have a compact breeding season. Also crucial to this compact breeding season is good heat detection and submission rates.

All of the above herd management factors must happen while trying to turn cows out full time to grass, but basic fact remains, hungry cows loose weight, have lower milk solids, are less fertile and have a lower immune status thus leading to expensive health and veterinary problems. Don’t leave cows hungry, as all the good work in gone into choosing the right bulls and preparing for the breeding season can be undone.