The grazing season

Did similar to you @nashmach and chucked all the strongish paddocks in with the first cut at the end of May as we had a serious burst of growth mid May, ended up with more grazing ground when things went tight and no second cut required, managed to keep stock out with no damage until last Monday, late spring was a bitch as big cattle were out and had to be rehoused and had yearlings bought about 20th March and had no space to house them.
 
Where's the one that was wandering :laugh:

How would lads rate the grazing season in general? I must say we learned more positive lessons this year than other.

Best investment by a long shot was a couple of hundred metres of polywire and about 40 plastic stakes. Ended up with the farm all divided up in paddocks of no more than 2 acres, utilization was superb at all times no doubt helped by the weather.

One of the other best decisions was cutting nearly 20% of the grazing area on June bank holiday weekend as strong paddocks. Really tidied up the farm. We were sorry we didnt take out more and lesson learned! Honestly say we won't cut anymore dedicated second cut silage here again.

Never did so little damage in the backend and the farm is eaten reasonably clean too.

Biggest downer was the late turnout. Usually we'd have yearlings out on March 17th and sometimes in late February. I'd have to check my diary here but it was April 25th or so this year :tdown:

If we had some rain in June/July and a drier March , I'd take this year again any time from the grazing side.

Oh where do I start.:laugh:

A month longer in the shed last winter didn't make for a great start here. It steadied up again around silage time with a rapid burst of growth. I ended up mowing a few fields of surplus grass and baling them and no sooner had I recovered from the cost of that job when growth rates dropped and I ended up feeding up that back to store cattle.
The second cut silage wasn't worth cutting after growing 12 weeks. The third cut wasn't worth growing. The diet feeder never left the 399 all year with a few cattle inside finishing to spare the grass for the store cattle. I bought a few fields of grass and made hay and this helped keep cattle going and the pits closed until November.
I found throughout the year that I was working hard to keep grass in front of the cattle. The cattle done well all year but tbh I'm glad to see the end of grazing 18.
 
Here's a bunch of cattle out getting meal and Rough grazing on 6 April to spare grass for cows then during June the during the drought the after the drought. All in all they throve along.
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Very late spring here in kerry ,cows were still inside by night locally by night up to may weekend and that was by the lads lucky enough still to have silage ,6 weeks later by june 20th growth gone and most dairy men highly stocked buffer feeding .I remember July 4th ground really burning up ,feeding 8kg meal in parlour and a bale of silage daily to 50 cows and truth be told they were half starved with ground skint after grazing.I blackened slurry on 1/3 skint grazing ground around july 20th when drought broke here and great response with damp enough august .Got handy 2nd cut done in mighty conditions in early sep and more in early oct. October really was our saviour and november was kind as well .Cows back 10% in milk ,Calf prices back over €70 head probably 10 ton + extra ration for 50 cows .Tight enough as usual on silage .Overall milk price was ok so a modest profit is forecast but it was hard earned The biggest lesson learned here was unless grass growing conditions are ideal she only fert to spread is pasture sward/18 -6-12 even talking to lads on fertile soils who spread 18 -6-12 early in spring ,this ground grew considerable better then other places even those spread with pasture sward in the drought .Straight nitrogen a complete waste of time in these conditions!!!
 
Very late spring here in kerry ,cows were still inside by night locally by night up to may weekend and that was by the lads lucky enough still to have silage ,6 weeks later by june 20th growth gone and most dairy men highly stocked buffer feeding .I remember July 4th ground really burning up ,feeding 8kg meal in parlour and a bale of silage daily to 50 cows and truth be told they were half starved with ground skint after grazing.I blackened slurry on 1/3 skint grazing ground around july 20th when drought broke here and great response with damp enough august .Got handy 2nd cut done in mighty conditions in early sep and more in early oct. October really was our saviour and november was kind as well .Cows back 10% in milk ,Calf prices back over €70 head probably 10 ton + extra ration for 50 cows .Tight enough as usual on silage .Overall milk price was ok so a modest profit is forecast but it was hard earned The biggest lesson learned here was unless grass growing conditions are ideal she only fert to spread is pasture sward/18 -6-12 even talking to lads on fertile soils who spread 18 -6-12 early in spring ,this ground grew considerable better then other places even those spread with pasture sward in the drought .Straight nitrogen a complete waste of time in these conditions!!!
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Never seen paddocks so advanced for the time of year. Have been able to keep most stock out till now but they say some kind of "beast" is on the way for the end of the month??
 
I walked meadows and pasture in galway yesterday and did a bit of grass measuring. Meadows that got lime in October have average covers of 1300. I think that's way to strong to leave for silage. The drier half of the pasture has average cover of 1100. All in all, I calculate that we have enough grass that would feed all of the stock for a month. It will be another 4 weeks before we will realistically have a hope of proper constant growth. Hopefully I might get half a bag per acre of urea out onto the pasture in the mean time and then be able to let some of them off to grass by the last week of February if ground conditions allow.
 
Have lads spread much fertiliser yet.
Nothing out here and great grass around.
Graze first or fertiliser first I'm wondering
 
Have lads spread much fertiliser yet.
Nothing out here and great grass around.
Graze first or fertiliser first I'm wondering
Guess that depends how much grass is there now. If there's enough to graze (and the ground will stand it) get it grazed off then spread some Fert.
 
Guess that depends how much grass is there now. If there's enough to graze (and the ground will stand it) get it grazed off then spread some Fert.
Got half bag of urea out in January and another bag tomorrow hopefully.
 
Have lads spread much fertiliser yet.
Nothing out here and great grass around.
Graze first or fertiliser first I'm wondering

Nothing spread here yet but I'm thinking strongly of going with urea in the next few days to keep things moving. I'm grazing the silage ground ATM with a few new arrivals. This field was mowed three times last year which didn't do it any favours.
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Slurry went out on some of the ground mid January, the rest got urea at 40 units yesterday and where the slurry went got 30. Nice bit of grass around but it’s all wanted, long way to go until magic day. Cows out by day with a week, weanlings out also but they are out grazing spring barley stubbles and more on fodder rape.
 
Slurry went out on some of the ground mid January, the rest got urea at 40 units yesterday and where the slurry went got 30. Nice bit of grass around but it’s all wanted, long way to go until magic day. Cows out by day with a week, weanlings out also but they are out grazing spring barley stubbles and more on fodder rape.
8 weeks till maguc day. Long time too isnt it.youd think it was sooner
 
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