Grazing: Taking opportunities as they come this spring

Early grazing can be a controversial topic for many farmers at this time of the year, but taking every opportunity to graze this spring is something that should be considered.

While land with heavier soils and a lower level of free-draining will often be labelled as a late grazing farm, you should still be looking for any pockets of dryness and well-draining soil that cows can get out to.

Early grazing does not involve getting cows through the land in 20-25 days, but rather it’s about getting the cows used to grazing again, meeting their nutrient requirements, increasing their milk volume, and improving solids with the most economical diet.

Grazed grass has a rare combination of high feed value in energy and protein, all while being the cheapest feed available to milking cows.

Grazing

What separates the best grass farmers from the average is being able to cope with challenging grazing conditions and poor weather in order to utilise as much grass as possible.

This is easier said than done, and there is a reason why many farmers opt to keep cows in for that bit longer in early spring. Early grazing undeniably involves more work, and can take a bit of trial and error when allocating grass to cows.

Targets need to be set by dairy farmers and these targets will vary from farm-to-farm depending on conditions, access to paddocks, and poaching.

The aim should be to graze 20-30% of the farm during February, but that could be dictated by the calving pattern and stocking rate of the milking platform.

Farmers should aim to get cows out for even two to three hours each day as many cows will have a dry matter intake (DMI) of 13-15kg at this stage of lactation. If that can be made up of 5-6kg DM each day, the benefits from a cost and milk constituents point of view could be huge.

If cows are receiving about 4-5kg of meal through the parlour and receiving another 10-11kg of grass silage and grazed grass DM, that will make up their demand and the quicker the amount of silage DM is decreased and substituted with grazed grass, the more income per cow will be increased.

Taking the opportunities

If we look back at the last couple of grazing seasons, waiting until March to get cows out does not necessarily mean that conditions will be better.

Last year, February and March were both wet. In 2023 February was a dry month, while March was torrential, so holding on for the weather to improve in March has proved to be a poor tactic.

Leaving it too late to get out to grazing and waiting for the weather to improve can lead to more problems which may result in poor grass utilisation, poor residuals, high covers, and poor quality grass.

The spring rainfall (mm per month) for Moorepark and Ballyhaise farms, as per Teagasc, are as follows:

Teagasc acknowledged that in 2024, the Ballyhaise farm achieved very similar grazing outcomes compared to 2023 by implementing tactics like on-off grazing, having multiple entry points to paddocks, and grazing lower covers first.

By implementing strategies such as back fences and spur roadways and making sure that your grass allocation is correct, a few hours of grazing each day can be achieved.