Cows out!

It sounds like he was calling when he knew you'd be there to help him.

I agree on the salesmen cold calling though. if you don't want something you not going to buy it just because some lad gives half an hour annoying you. I just tell them to leave their number on a brochure and a few prices and I'll look at it in my own time.
 
Must have rained a small flood last night. Woke up to a field that looks like it was min tilled. Cattle were caked in mud. And it was a high field.
 
Yeh cows in the far silage paddock at the minute, mess getting them over to it, they started ploughing up a good field on the usual route, so I had to leave them in a different way, through the 2nd yard and across another field, which they are now ploughing up. Its been some sticky messy start to the year! I've no other choice but keep going however, have another silage paddock with a cover of 1500 in it that I need grazed out asap.
 
Is it worth having them out doing that much damage as compared to having them in for another week or two unless your out of fodder of course and even then, considering the damage that was done in the last two years is it a bit early to be poaching and hoping to have grass there later in the year, only just wondering! :whistling:
 
Is it worth having them out doing that much damage as compared to having them in for another week or two unless your out of fodder of course and even then, considering the damage that was done in the last two years is it a bit early to be poaching and hoping to have grass there later in the year, only just wondering! :whistling:

Plenty of ways to minimise soil damage. Multiple entry points, temporary pathways, backing wire, on/off grazing etc etc. I've been out over a month only damage is around the entrances and that can be easily repaired with a simple chain harrow
Obviously if your options are keeping in or plowing your ground then yea best to stay in.
 
That is true I guess land is a bit heavier down here so we are a little more cautious as it takes a lot longer to recover
 
That is true I guess land is a bit heavier down here so we are a little more cautious as it takes a lot longer to recover

Most of Cavan would be probably the same. My land would be better than average but still would be heavily drained.
But I know guys on some of the heaviest farms you can find still getting out earlier than they would have thanks to loads of the little things mentioned above (including smaller lighter cows:whistle:).
But looking at the forecast last night the south seems to have gotten far higher a percentage of normal rainfall then we did last week
 
Yeh I'm using every trick in the book, and most the damage is across narrow enough strips which I've basically wrote off, I can fix them up in time anyways. Its the lesser of two evils I think, putting them back in would mean having to purchase lots of feed, and mess up my spring rotation, the grass is definitely growing here and I need to press on and get the few heavy covers grazed out now.
 
Anyone else finding that there is close on zero growth. Land is just fresh and on my travels Im seeing no grass anywhere. Land has gone backwards over the last 2 weeks. Even my ultra early dry fields are heavy going at the moment. All land has had slurry and fert so it should be moving. Its looking like a repeat of last year all over again and our average grazing season over the last number of year reduced drastically. Dry land, but too much falling from the sky. The amount of times I saw slurry 'in over the hedge' on Saturday was unreal. Thankfully I have enough feed till the end of Summer:D
 
Anyone else finding that there is close on zero growth. Land is just fresh and on my travels Im seeing no grass anywhere. Land has gone backwards over the last 2 weeks. Even my ultra early dry fields are heavy going at the moment. All land has had slurry and fert so it should be moving. Its looking like a repeat of last year all over again and our average grazing season over the last number of year reduced drastically. Dry land, but too much falling from the sky. The amount of times I saw slurry 'in over the hedge' on Saturday was unreal. Thankfully I have enough feed till the end of Summer:D

I'm not bothering with fert yet its still too cold in my reckoning.
Today wasn't bad tho

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Anyone else finding that there is close on zero growth. Land is just fresh and on my travels Im seeing no grass anywhere. Land has gone backwards over the last 2 weeks. Even my ultra early dry fields are heavy going at the moment. All land has had slurry and fert so it should be moving. Its looking like a repeat of last year all over again and our average grazing season over the last number of year reduced drastically. Dry land, but too much falling from the sky. The amount of times I saw slurry 'in over the hedge' on Saturday was unreal. Thankfully I have enough feed till the end of Summer:D

i put out a bag and a half of CAN on a seven acre reseeded ( two years ago ) field nearly three weeks ago , it hasn't grown a blade since and their was a reasonable cover on it to start with
 
Anyone else finding that there is close on zero growth. Land is just fresh and on my travels Im seeing no grass anywhere. Land has gone backwards over the last 2 weeks. Even my ultra early dry fields are heavy going at the moment. All land has had slurry and fert so it should be moving. Its looking like a repeat of last year all over again and our average grazing season over the last number of year reduced drastically. Dry land, but too much falling from the sky. The amount of times I saw slurry 'in over the hedge' on Saturday was unreal. Thankfully I have enough feed till the end of Summer:D

Would agree with everything you say there,slurry has worked here a bit,and our cows are still in and by the looks of things wont be out this week either.
 
Anything with a cover here is not growing. Anything grazed is growing very slowly, though I have noticed green shoots the last couple of days. Biggest problem was the late turn out, first grazed paddocks just haven't had enough time to regrow. Almost all of the farm covered with 100-150kgs of 10-10-20 and have been tickling out Urea and slurry, farm is green but no great growth.

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I mowed my lawn around 10 days ago and yesterday evening was when grass started to grow back on it. Think growth is only now starting to kick off on the farm. Had to rehouse all my stock on Saturday as my dry grass field was beginning to look like a ploughed field. Going to leave them in for at least a week or two to let growth take off a bit.
 
Have been out about 20 days of this month (days only) .in fulltime the last 3 days
heavy land ,reasonable growth on the fields that have been ate.
Some around here haven't had cows out at all.I not sorry for putting them out ,saved a right bit of fodder and less shyness to spread.
 
Am I the only one with growth so ha? I measured 20kg/day/ha last wk, I'd guess it much be 30 this week. I'm still probably only making up lost ground on yas after the drought last summer though ha. In any case, what the last 2months has shown me is I have no other choice than sink about 20k into improving drains and cowlanes over the next year or so to be able to properly maximise the grazing season here.
 
Anything with a cover here is not growing. Anything grazed is growing very slowly, though I have noticed green shoots the last couple of days. Biggest problem was the late turn out, first grazed paddocks just haven't had enough time to regrow. Almost all of the farm covered with 100-150kgs of 10-10-20 and have been tickling out Urea and slurry, farm is green but no great growth.

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That's it fert is only turning places green at the moment.
I hope to get my fert out in the next week or two


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Anything with a cover here is not growing. Anything grazed is growing very slowly, though I have noticed green shoots the last couple of days. Biggest problem was the late turn out, first grazed paddocks just haven't had enough time to regrow. Almost all of the farm covered with 100-150kgs of 10-10-20 and have been tickling out Urea and slurry, farm is green but no great growth.

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:sweatdrop: I thought that I was the only one tight on grass then :lol:
cattle out here just over a week with no sign of growth compared to last year id cattle out full time with plenty of grass ahead of me in mid march last year
 
I'hve been out over a month only damage is around the entrances and that can be easily repaired with a simple chain harrow
Obviously if your options are keeping in or plowing your ground then yea best to stay in.

what is the best thing to do with poached ground? It looks just like surface damage but along the hedgerow looks like a right off.
 
what is the best thing to do with poached ground? It looks just like surface damage but along the hedgerow looks like a right off.

Was once told on poaching the best thing to do is nothing at all.
There were trials done on damaged heavy ground and the grass came back the fastest on untreated, with light chain harrowed following it with a slight delay (so that's what I do to make it easy to spread and drive on). Rolling was dead last in time to recover in grass, as you'd imagine it left it less permeable and reduced air content
 
Was once told on poaching the best thing to do is nothing at all.
There were trials done on damaged heavy ground and the grass came back the fastest on untreated, with light chain harrowed following it with a slight delay (so that's what I do to make it easy to spread and drive on). Rolling was dead last in time to recover in grass, as you'd imagine it left it less permeable and reduced air content

Id a farm walk here last year and I showed the advisors a poached paddock that I planned to reseed later In the year,non of them agreed with me though and said leave it alone,grass growth in it was dismal in comparison to the field I reseeded it next to it
 
My dads only solution is the bloody roller here! Anyways, how soon after do you go with the chain harrow? And would you bother thrown some seed down over badly damaged areas? I think I'll go pickup some sort of chain harrow, any recommendations?
 
Id a farm walk here last year and I showed the advisors a poached paddock that I planned to reseed later In the year,non of them agreed with me though and said leave it alone,grass growth in it was dismal in comparison to the field I reseeded it next to it

It's a hard thing to gauge. Advisors differ a lot, some are more conservative.
I was certain last year I would have to either reseed or stitch the top of a field (cows damaged it at the back end of 2012). Ran the land leveler and chain harrowed it til I could get around to it. By the following rotation it wasnt worth doing it had recovered so well.
My dads only solution is the bloody roller here! Anyways, how soon after do you go with the chain harrow? And would you bother thrown some seed down over badly damaged areas? I think I'll go pickup some sort of chain harrow, any recommendations?
Rollers have a place in silage fields but I'd avoid them like a plague on a grazing paddock.
I'd go in on temporary pass ways when it get dry enough, a stretch of some good days ideally a touch of dusty. If ground is still muddy the harrow will back a god awful mess and a waste of time. If it was extremely poached (something I try my best at all times to avoid) then yea I'd either get the land leveler and a stitcher or harrow it then possibly broadcast and roll (cheaper but less effective and likely less persistence and more loss of seed).
My harrow is older than I am so I can't give any suggestions I'm afraid
 
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