planning date start of spring grazing

case 956

as the title says when do ye usually start or hope to put freshly calved cows or animals out to start grazing..............

bob charles

case 956 wrote: »

as the title says when do ye usually start or hope to put freshly calved cows or animals out to start grazing..............

any chance you can let me in on the future forecast? Plans is just one more thing to go wrong.

delaval

Afc 800 or first calving

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

Afc 800 or first calving

irrespective of ground conditions, I plan to start grazing grass whenever the weather allows, not a day before or after, and that could be next week or next May depending on weather. Question posed is pointless

delaval

Our first cow is due Feb 1st and they will go out that day regardless of weather (save Snow).
It may be different in a beef situation where numbers and animals may be larger. Our total focus since last Sept has been towards spring grass.Freshly calved being fed in parlour will graze enough in two 3 hour grazings.

If your land is reasonably dry and you can use multiple gaps weather not really an issue.

What ever you do try to eliminate grass silage asap as it is pure poison for a milking cow. It will do wonders for your solids and your price

blue5000

Aiming to have weanlings out 20th of Feb. Weather permitting.

Bodacious

i let 2 early calvers and 5 yearling heifers to grass march 20th last year and anytime similar this year and id be over the moon!!

freedominacup

delaval wrote: »

What ever you do try to eliminate grass silage asap as it is pure poison for a milking cow. It will do wonders for your solids and your price

We turned out a week ago.Missed one day so far. Couldn't agree with you on silage comment though unless you are speaking about silage made to just provide maintenance to dry cows. I would think my silage is a better quality feed than the grass the cows are currently getting.

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

What ever you do try to eliminate grass silage asap as it is pure poison for a milking cow. It will do wonders for your solids and your price

Something must be wrong so if you silage is poorer quality than grazed grass in January, or else your cow diet isnt up to scratch

Timmaay

Bob I'd love to have the cows out in Jan, protein levels from the winter milkers is very low at the minute, and nothing at all wrong with my silage, 73dmd. Once you kept afew paddocks with some decent cover back in Sept/Oct, early spring grazing will never be an issue from a quality/quantity point of view. Letting out the large Holsteins we have out on them fields is a totally different story.

jomoloney

bob charles wrote: »

Something must be wrong so if you silage is poorer quality than grazed grass in January, or else your cow diet isnt up to scratch

you obviously not dairying, and know nothing about proper grass management

bob charles

jomoloney wrote: »

you obviously not dairying, and know nothing about proper grass management

So you lads are telling me that January grass is better, feed value like for like than your silage in the pits. :rolleyes:, I could turn the question back on yourself and ask you do you know anything about good silage making.

Im not claiming to know anything about proper grass land management. what I do know about is my own farm grass management. I see guys regularly cutting off their noses to spite their faces, by having cows out grazing when they should be indoors. I suppose there is a certain amount of willie waving go on having cows out. Damage due to poor grazing conditions will have a serious affect on DM production for the rest of the year.

I will graze grass any day of the year aslong as weather and underfoot conditions are okay, but I wouldnt put animals that Im looking for a top performance out to graze allot of the ****e in swards that are overwintered. its at best just a maintenance feed.

So when you lads test this January grass, what results are showing up? the yellow old tinged leaves sure as hell dont amount to allot of energy.

John_F

bob charles wrote: »

So you lads are telling me that January grass is better, feed value like for like than your silage in the pits. :rolleyes:, I could turn the question back on yourself and ask you do you know anything about good silage making.

Im not claiming to know anything about proper grass land management. what I do know about is my own farm grass management. I see guys regularly cutting off their noses to spite their faces. I suppose there is a certain amount of willie waving go on having cows out. Damage due to poor grazing conditions will have a serious affect on DM production for the rest of the year.

I will graze grass any day of the year aslong as weather and underfoot conditions are okay, but I wouldnt put animals that Im looking for a top performance out to graze allot of the ****e in swards that are overwintered. its at best just a maintenance feed.

So when you lads test this January grass, what results are showing up? the yellow old tinged leaves sure as hell dont amount to allot of energy.

plus the DM of fresh grass now is at best 12% compared to grass silage at >25%. Grazed grass is very important to the bottom line of a dairy business, but you would wonder is it really meeting the requirements she has, a freshly calved cow has a hell of a lot of stuff going on besides having to scavange for fresh grass (which will be like a green rainbow coming out the back end) and still not get what she needs. unless you are providing a good buffer, and bringing in the cows after a couple of hours i do think it is a waste of time - at least with decent FR animals. but there are fellas just letting them off to grass as soon after calving and happy with it, not my cup of tea to be honest.

to say bob has knows nothing of 'proper grass management' when his point is focused on the state of the sward for the rest of the year is a bit strange. Also one could say a person knows nothing about dairy farming if they aren't thinking about the cow and thinking about the grass in the fields. Let them out when the weather and ground is right.

horses for courses applys

manjou

Sucklers starting to calve in 3 weeks will let out when ground conditions and grass availability allow which after walking land yesterday will be after 2 good weeks of good drying weather. Cattle as bob says are out any day its dry enough and they have enough grass to keep them out.If i needed to buffer feed them at grass then i then would consider that not having grass.

Timmaay

John_F wrote: »

unless you are providing a good buffer, and bringing in the cows after a couple of hours i do think it is a waste of time - at least with decent FR animals. but there are fellas just letting them off to grass as soon after calving and happy with it, not my cup of tea to be honest.

Yep that 1st part certainly is the plan, studies have shown that if you only leave a cow out for about 3hrs she'll intake not much less than if she had the whole day to walk around the field (and poach the hell out of it in doing so). Any dairylad who lets a cow off to grass after calving and doesn't give her a 2nd thought is at nothing. Measuring the cows BCS is something that I'm planning on doing far more regularly this year.

Tipp Man

bob charles wrote: »

Im not claiming to know anything about proper grass land management. what I do know about is my own farm grass management. I see guys regularly cutting off their noses to spite their faces, by having cows out grazing when they should be indoors. I suppose there is a certain amount of willie waving go on having cows out. Damage due to poor grazing conditions will have a serious affect on DM production for the rest of the year.
.

Good man Bob i think you have nailed it here

Having the cows out first is like having the corn cut first or having the biggest combine/tractor to the tillage lads - most of it is bravado - just so they can say at the discussion group they had the cows out on Feb 1st or whatever - like it is supposed to make them some kind of better farmer or something

It suits some lads alright but most definately not everybody

mf240

I have cattle out the whole winter on rented ground, so wheres my medal.

Timmaay

Same here MF, afew dry cows in a very sandy dry field all winter. Feckers are much clearer than the ones that spend the winter in the cubicles or straw bedded. God dam EU and their Nitrates rules :P Main hassle is drawing silage down to them, messy going through wetter fields as the roadway doesn't go all the way to that field.

But yeh Tipp, back to the age old conclusion to almost every argument on this forum as you said, it suits some but not all!

bob charles

over 30% of my herd are out doors, but these are animals that are in a store period and not being pushed. putting high output animals outdoors at present and expecting to consume the majority of their diet as grass when result in them melting. Now maybe guys in other parts of the country are having a heat wave but around here man nor beast shouldn't be in the top grazing fields today

delaval

freedominacup wrote: »

We turned out a week ago.Missed one day so far. Couldn't agree with you on silage comment though unless you are speaking about silage made to just provide maintenance to dry cows. I would think my silage is a better quality feed than the grass the cows are currently getting.

Whats your protein? I agree about poor silage but whenever we introduced silage less than 75 dmd and 30dm protein fell yield not affected

delaval

jomoloney wrote: »

you obviously not dairying, and know nothing about proper grass management

Totally agree I didn't want to say some people here very sensitive as I have found out.......not you Bob

delaval

Timmaay wrote: »

Yep that 1st part certainly is the plan, studies have shown that if you only leave a cow out for about 3hrs she'll intake not much less than if she had the whole day to walk around the field (and poach the hell out of it in doing so). Any dairylad who lets a cow off to grass after calving and doesn't give her a 2nd thought is at nothing. Measuring the cows BCS is something that I'm planning on doing far more regularly this year.

To be fair I don't think anyone serious about cows is letting them off without aa second thought

td5man

John_F wrote: »

plus the DM of fresh grass now is at best 12% compared to grass silage at >25%. Grazed grass is very important to the bottom line of a dairy business, but you would wonder is it really meeting the requirements she has, a freshly calved cow has a hell of a lot of stuff going on besides having to scavange for fresh grass (which will be like a green rainbow coming out the back end) and still not get what she needs. unless you are providing a good buffer, and bringing in the cows after a couple of hours i do think it is a waste of time - at least with decent FR animals. but there are fellas just letting them off to grass as soon after calving and happy with it, not my cup of tea to be honest.

to say bob has knows nothing of 'proper grass management' when his point is focused on the state of the sward for the rest of the year is a bit strange. Also one could say a person knows nothing about dairy farming if they aren't thinking about the cow and thinking about the grass in the fields. Let them out when the weather and ground is right.

horses for courses applys

Dont mention horses