Grass Growth Rates

Im trying to understand what way you dairy lads calculate it. So replacements/stock bull/calves are not included unless they are grazing the milking block.

Your rate of 3.3 is only cows on the milking grazing areas only?? king in LU stocking rate? how do lads with say 500kgs jersey cows differentiate over say your cows at 650 when tal

I calculate all animals over every grass ac, what grows over 63 a week is my silage. I have no delicated silage area
they dont
 
Some of the real holstien men would have cows up on 750/800 kgs but would be probably feeding 5kgs plus all year.

We have a mixture of holstien and friesan and also have a small few jersey cross. As far as I can see the jerseys eat as much as the big cows, they never seem to stop eating.
 
Some of the real holstien men would have cows up on 750/800 kgs but would be probably feeding 5kgs plus all year.

We have a mixture of holstien and friesan and also have a small few jersey cross. As far as I can see the jerseys eat as much as the big cows, they never seem to stop eating.
Your going to too many of them meetings burning white diesel lad..... They eat feic all!!!
 
Hey Ozzy, just a quick query on your numbers above, I always worked on the basis that animals eat 2% of LW as DM/day never been too far out when feeding indoors, that would give 3.9 x 600 x 0.02 = 46.8 kgDM/day what figures are you using to get 63kgDM/day? Not trying to be snotty just wondering am I missing something.

your on the ball, I had included 10ha of Peas, and I also originally worked off a average weight of 400kgs per animal. after totting the groups I reckon av weight is closer to 420 and considering they are young im putting them down at 2.5% of demand of bodyweight per day. im carrying 2.5t of liveweight per grass HA, and at 2.5% = 63 kgs per ha of demand per day. I always found young cattle consumed more than 2% of their bodyweight in DM per day. So my stocking rate is 4.2LU Ha if taking 600kgs as one unit. Easy know I buy allot of feed for winter
 
How well should you be grazing out fields this weather? I have a few fields that got a little stemmy and I'm trying to force the suckler cows to graze them bare. They are quite content. If I graze it too much I think I'm at risk of a very slow regrowth,.

I recon that I have 21 days of grass ahead of me in this kind of weather. If it rains, I will have a big burst of growth. Fields that were grazed 5 days ago are coming again slowly, but will soon come to a stop. The land that I drained is the slowest. I have some heavy ground that's still pushing on very well.
 
Grass growth here is practically zero. None of it's burning up yet but another week of this heat and dry and it will. Shooting out like you wouldn't believe.
 
Can there be negative growth?
Lots of talk of it in second cut round here with lads saying stuff is wilting away. Had a look at ours today and while it's not growing don't think it's disappearing either.
Was over with my neighbour last night and he's measured 11mm of rain in the last 6.5 weeks.
 
I remember back in a previous drought year being called to cut a second cut before it disappeared, farmer could see it reducing by the day.
 
This field is holding fairly green. There's a couple of feet of turf on top of marl. The other side of the yard is a hill with rock outcrops and its burnt in bits.
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This field is holding fairly green. There's a couple of feet of turf on top of marl. The other side of the yard is a hill with rock outcrops and its burnt in bits. View attachment 56017

That is looking better than most fields around here ( I live approx 3 miles from Mf240). I have a lot less grass , and there would be plenty with a lot less than me. Silage 3 weeks cut , and stubble just about green all over. No fert out for 2nd cut , and only put 1/2 the slurry out as thought it would burn grass. But where got it greener now. I can't tell you when had rain last. A month at least?
Was down in Clonakilty over the weekend. It's an awful lot greener there , and plenty of grass around there. I saw 2 lads with fertiliser spreaders on Saturday down there. I haven't seen one working around here for 2 weeks. Here is a picture of grass in West Cork.
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I did a walkabout yesterday to see what way grass is and tbh I'm sorry I did. Any of the fields with sand underneath look like they got roundup 2 weeks ago. Far worse then 2013 at this point. Aftergrass is coming along but very thin so that won't last to long when cattle get onto it.
 
is there anyone spraying water or considering doing it? is there much value in say 2000g water to the acre?
 
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