Beef Grazing 2022

Easten

feck it I let some of the early calved cows and calves onto the silage ground. The weather is promised ok for the next 10 days. Calves are getting strong but getting dirty on the slats plus the silage I was feeding them was poor quality. I made it in dry weather but the problem was it was gone into a jungle before I cut it. Suckler cows need to be fed too when there's calves sucking them and rough silage doesn't work. Cows were starting to loose condition.

Hopefully I'll get the silage fields grazed by mid April then it'll be a coat of slurry, a 1/2 bag of CAN and a long wait for silage!!

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118710053#Comment_118710053

What rate of slurry you going to go with. I think you want a least 40 to 50 units of CAN to get a good crop with at least 2500 gals of good slurry a week or two before the CAN. Great growt and grass quality in May and you need to utilize that.

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118710208#Comment_118710208

I think about 2500g /acre is the minimum. I find it hard to do any less a you end up with a patchy cover of silage.

yes it needs at least 40/50 units of CAN but I only will have 14 units (half a bag). I know its not enough but I'll be robbing the buffer fertility out of the ground for this year. But that's not sustainable going forward.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118710301#Comment_118710301

I always use Urea in first cut. Normally I have a bit spread in late Feb/early March about 20-25 units/ an acre. If a paddock is grazed my mid March it gets another 40 units and all the silage ground get 2-3k gallons of slurry / acre and a week after the rest of the Urea and is spread. I aim to have 90-100 units of N/ acre on silage ground. This means the grass will not start to flower before late May.

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118710301#Comment_118710301

You will use up that 14 units in one good week in May. I know fertilizer is a crazy price. My opinion is don't let the best grass growing month of the year go by without using it. My land here is light and very dry but we can get stock out early. If a dry summer comes it kills us, so we need to get a decent first cut. Your ground maybe different and not as affected in dry conditions.

Bass Reeves

Soil temperature is at or above 6 C accross most of the country. It 7.5C in the south west.

Easten

Let a ball of them out this morning, all onto silage ground now until the end of April. Just hoping the weather holds, looks like the next 14 days are going to be dry so I'll then have stolen another 2 weeks from the winter. I'm going to hold the rest of the hay and silage for next winter. I'm on a low enough stocking density as a ran a few culls over the winter and also a few cows that were not performing.

There's a great cover of grass in fairness thanks to the mild winter. No fertilizer yet, might get away with just slurry for the first cut.

Good loser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118705636#Comment_118705636

No I was talking about bulk silage. Cutting date is critical in bulk v. quality considerations. Just this year, because of high fertilizer prices, would consider letting the cutting date extend somewhat, maybe 5 to 7 days. Weather will also be a factor that will affect cutting date.

FarmerBrowne

How likely is it that the current good cattle trade will come to a halt in the backend? In the west of Ireland which has alot of low input suckler farmers these are not going to put out their bit of fertilizer so therefore their crop will be down. If they do decide to make silage it could cost over €20 a bale and some may not bother at that price and not winter cattle especially when meal is added to the equation. Cull cows are probably the most likely to get the road, especially empty cows followed by weinling and store cattle.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118744976#Comment_118744976

Factory price is the biggest factor in store and culls price in the mart. Lads will make some silage. Mpost lads along the west know however dear your own foddr is buying it along the west coast is impossible

Danzy

What do people reckon it will cost to keep a bullock this year, say if they continued to farm as other years.

You'd have to think 500 a head might not be too far off.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118748696#Comment_118748696

Fertlizer will add about 65 euro/head on to my system that included the fertlizer for silage. Contractor and plastic 3-4/bale more at a guess. Assuming rations are 100/ton extra compared to last year that is about 20/head. My costs were about 350/head in a 12 month system, add about a 100/head to that.