6/11/2017

Week ending farm notes:

·        Cover has increased this week to 2,488kgDM/ha with net growth of 85kg/day.  Cows have been on an average of a 30 day round of the farm/23 day round of the area in the grazing round. Silage area has stretched to 14.25ha including the Italians near the shed and that is the end of paddocks to be included in this silage cut – booked in 10 days time.

·        Pre-graze mowing of 4 more paddocks has occurred in winter-wet areas, to re-establish an appropriate residual.  Post-grazing residuals this week have been between 1500 and 1550kgDM/ha.  Unlike the last 3 weeks where we moved cows on if we felt their break was finished and sped up the round we have held closer to 5ha/day.  This was a decision in large part due to the slow decrease in length of our pre-grazing covers on the slightly quicker rounds we had experienced. 

·        Even in the lower residuals achieved, there is still much evidence of small amounts of un-grazed pasture indicating we are offering close to sufficient grass ahead.  While this has been less total feed offered, than the more generous allocation of the previous 3 weeks, it has been in far more favourable conditions with much better utilisation.  With seed-head rife across the farm, there is no room for lax-residuals and we’ve pressed the herd a little harder.

·        The feed wedge shows the surplus sitting at the top of the wedge, plus 2 paddocks now occupied solely by calves.  The grazing wedge has filled in much more nicely than last week and pre-grazing covers are about 75-100kgDM/ha longer than last week.  We expect that we can increase total intake slightly in the coming days as a consequence of our actions in the last 7 days.

·        Cows have been allocated 18kg of pasture this week, and there has been a fast and dramatic change to the composition of what is being offered.  75% of the farm is now covered in seed head, which represents a low quality component that is about 1/3 of the feed available at the moment.

·       Milkers have been producing an average of 1.75 kgMS/cow this week ranging from 1.82kg/cow to 1.69kg/cow.