Management Notes are prepared by staff from the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE). CAFRE is a College within the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).
DAIRYING
Prepared by: Richard Gibson
Have you a summer grazing plan?
Maintaining grass quality through the summer is critically important and intervention will be required. Grass growth rates in excess of 70 kg DM per hectare per day will result in surplus grass on the grazing block. Stocked at 3.5 cows per hectare, grass demand will be 56 kg DM per hectare, leaving a surplus that must be managed to maintain quality. In most circumstances, getting in early to remove heavy grass covers or addressing soil nutrient imbalance can pay dividends with improved grass growth and utilisation.
Measures that you can adapt into the summer grazing plan include:
- Pre-mowing – cut the grass a day before grazing and let the cows pick up the wilted forage. Best results are achieved when the grass is cut by a disc mower without a conditioner. This can lower the post-grazing cover, removing any unwanted stem at the base of the plant.
- Topping – after the second grazing rotation, paddocks should be topped if there is an accumulation of hard material and poor quality grass around dung pats. This will improve the quality of the regrowth. Set the topper to cut grass at a height of 5-6 cm. Carry out topping immediately after cows are removed from a grazing area, as a later topping will check the regrowth. Research has shown that topped swards will improve yield by 1.2 litres per cow per day in mid to late season, compared to swards that were not topped.
- Alternate grazing and cutting – cutting all grazing paddocks at least once during the season leaves a clean sward with an even regrowth and will improve grass utilisation and cow performance throughout the season.
- Applying farm slurry with LESSE will help address any soil P and K imbalances. Compound fertiliser may also be required to replace nutrient off-take, especially at higher stocking rates.
- Leader/follower – this enables higher yielding cows to achieve higher grass intakes and milk yields by allowing them to eat the leafy portion of the sward, while dry stock can follow on the residual. The key issue with this approach is the time required to return the area back into the grazing rotation.
- Infrastructure improvements, less back grazing, improved paddock access, accurate grass allocation and sufficient water availability in each grazing area will help grow and utilise more grass.
Parasite control in dairy cows and young stock
Calves are born free of parasites. Likewise, any older animals that have been treated for parasites over the winter will be free of any worm burden. However, once turned out to graze, animals of all ages become infected with parasites from grazing pastures that harbour the infective larvae.
During this time of year, warmer weather allows the overwintered parasite eggs to rapidly develop into the infective larval stage, leaving grazing animals at risk of high worm burdens. The impact of parasites can range from lower growth rates in heifers and reduced milk yields to serious clinical disease.
First grazers, born last autumn or this spring, will be at highest risk of disease, as they will not have developed protective immunity. Treatments should be given before the predicted risk period and administered to prevent a build-up of infection to dangerous levels. Such treatments will limit the contamination of pastures and reduce the risk of a subsequent worm burden.
Reseeding assessments
As we approach the time of year for reseeding, sward assessment should be carried out now to select underperforming fields. Using regular grass measuring on your farm can highlight fields which need attention and may require a full reseed. Reseeding should only be considered when:
- Soil compaction and drainage issues have been resolved.
- Soil fertility has been optimised for grass growth, soil pH 6.3, soil P index 2+ and soil K index 2+.
- The proportion of sown species has fallen below 60%.
If drainage in the fields selected for reseeding is not optimal, start light remedial work or plan for more major renovation. Look for wet areas and indicator species such as rushes. Over time, drains may have become blocked with silt/grass. Getting these cleaned out is important. Also, check outflows from existing shores to ensure that they are still running.
Top management tips for June
- Manage the surplus grass on the grazing block and remove early to recycle the area back into the grazing block.
- Monitor the pre-grazing cover for the herd. Ensure pre-grazing is less than or equal to 3000 kg DM per hectare.
- Use farm slurry applied by LESSE and/or chemical compound fertiliser to correct nutrient deficiency.
- Plan some holiday time for yourself and the family during the summer.
Managing Rising Costs on Dairy Farms
With the impact of rising input costs being felt across the industry, CAFRE are hosting a number of on-farm events designed to consider what can be done to mitigate rising costs. The events will be hosted in Coleraine, Newry, Newtownstewart and Aughnacloy in June and are open to the farming public. Pre-registration and details from the CAFRE website.
BEEF AND SHEEP
Prepared by: Jack Friar
Selecting lambs for slaughter
As mentioned briefly in the May Management Notes, keep a close eye on weights and grades of lambs and act accordingly to ensure you maximise farm profits. Draft lambs for slaughter as soon as they become ‘fit’. The factory specification for carcase weight for spring lambs in most cases is between 19 kg and 21 kg. The kill-out percentage of lambs varies throughout the season. For early spring born lambs which are well conformed, creep fed and drafted straight off the ewe it is around 50%, whilst later in the season for weaned lambs it can be as low as 42-44%. Lambs should not be drafted on weight alone. Fat classes should also be assessed as most factories have a preference for lambs with a fat class of at least 3 to meet the widest range of customer specifications. Therefore, regularly weigh and handle lambs to avoid lambs being drafted that are overweight, have poor conformation and are overfat or under fleshed.
Weaning lambs
Lambs should be weaned between 12 and 14 weeks of age and offered the best quality grass. Therefore, lambs born around the start of March should be earmarked for weaning in the next few weeks. Not weaning at this age can have a negative impact on both lambs and ewes. Once lambs reach this age they are consuming large quantities of grass and by not weaning them, both the ewes and lambs will be competing for grass. Consider weaning lambs at approximately ten weeks for hogget ewes, ewes rearing triplets and other ewes in poor condition. After eight to ten weeks the proportion of milk in the overall diet is minimal, particularly for these lambs. Having the correct body condition score for the next breeding season starts at weaning, as it can take ten to 12 weeks for a ewe to gain one body condition score.
Take faecal egg counts (FEC) of lambs at weaning and drench, if necessary. Leave these lambs on the same grazing for four to five days. Take the ewes away from the lambs as this helps the lambs settle before moving as they are going back to surroundings they are familiar with. Do not dose and move. This is also a good time to administrate trace element supplements, if needed.
Act now, complete a fodder budget
With higher fertiliser prices this year, a lot of discussion took place before fertiliser applications for first cut. Did you apply the same rate as usual or reduce application rates by either a half or full bag per acre? If you reduced application rates and cut your silage at the usual time you will have potentially reduced the yield. Therefore, after the first cut estimate the dry matter of the silage you have made and measure the pit or count bales to see how much tonnage you have produced. Use this information to plan what is needed from second cut or act now if additional forage needs to be sourced.
Watch out for
Bluefly strikes, that time again!
Warm, damp conditions provide the ideal environment for blueflies and maggot strike. Closely monitor lambs in particular and decide on appropriate preventative treatments as some provide a longer period of protection than others. Pay particular attention to the withdrawal periods on these products, as some are relatively long and will not suit heavier lambs close to finishing.
Worm burdens, are you monitoring them?
Monitor worm burdens in both cattle and sheep. Damp, warm conditions can increase worm burdens. Burdens will increase as calves and lambs become more reliant on grazed grass. Dairy bred beef calves are particularly susceptible due to higher grass intakes from an earlier age compared to suckler bred calves.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Prepared by: Pamela Gardiner
Are you sitting on the fence?
Are you fed up spending time and money on traditional fencing tasks? Do you want your livestock to get access to pasture that has been unused due to inadequate boundaries? Would you consider a virtual fence?
What is virtual fencing?
Virtual fencing is an invisible fencing system whereby a grazing animal wears a GPS collar unit, which plays an audible melody. The signal resembles a scale of tones, starting at a low pitch and rising gradually as the animal approaches the virtual boundary to deter it from crossing the line. The animal will recognise this tone scale, turn and go back to the permitted pasture to avoid an electric pulse.
The technology
The technology consists of an app on your device and a GPS collar on your animals that communicate over your mobile network. The collar sends status reports to the app on a regular basis or the user can ask for real time positions of their animals. You are notified of incidents such as electric pulses or escapes immediately via push notifications from the app. The system works in one direction only, so any escapees can always rejoin the herd.
Getting started
After downloading the app to your phone, define your grazing area by drawing a polygon on the map function within the app. Once your grazing area is created, assign the collars to your animals by entering the name of the animal/animal ID against each collar. Once the collars are assigned, choose all the collars that are going to be in the same grazing area and move the collars into the grazing area on the app.
Fit your collars to your animals and move them into their grazing area. When the collars detect they are within the grazing area, the operating mode is activated and you are set up.
Most systems also allow you to set up more advanced features such as exclusion zones (close off areas within your grazing area where you don’t want animals to go) and shelter beacons (disables the collars GPS receiver, for example, if your animals have access to a shed within the grazing area where the GPS signal will be poor).
Training your animals
When the animals are initially fitted with the collars, they should be trained to learn the relationship between the audio warning, electric pulse and virtual boundary. Create a grazing area that overlaps the physical fenced area, so the animals are fenced in by both physical fencing and one virtual fence line. The training grazing area may be one to four hectares. This depends on numbers and forage, but should be modest so the animals come into contact with the virtual boundary during the first days, but still big enough to provide sufficient food and space so they keep calm during training.
Experience at CAFRE
Beginning in January 2022, CAFRE Hill Farm has been exploring the use of a virtual fencing system with parts of the suckler herd involved in an out-wintering project for pasture management for a breeding wader site.
When the livestock were initially fitted with the collars, they were trained. Within one week, they had learnt the system and were turned onto larger land blocks and the system used to protect vulnerable areas and or restrict grazing to get less palatable zones grazed out on the Hill Farm. CAFRE has found there is variation between individual cows in how close they graze to the virtual fence, but remarkably, there are very few shocks delivered as the individual and the herd respond promptly to the audio cues.
Final considerations
To get the most out of the technology it is important to have good GPS and mobile coverage and spend time training your animals. The initial cost of virtual fencing means the technology is mostly being used for conservation grazing projects at present, but as with all technology and with a growing number of suppliers coming on the market, the price is likely to fall. This will make it a more viable option for the wider industry.
ENVIRONMENT
Prepared by: Ciaran McKay
Consider appropriate management of silage effluent and carry out silo maintenance checks before ensiling grass silage. Silage effluent is a potent pollutant. It can cause serious harm to watercourses if not correctly managed.
Silage making to minimise effluent production
Effluent production is mainly dependent on the dry matter of the crop being ensiled. As effluent represents a loss of readily available nutrients, minimising the amount produced should be a priority. Aim to cut the crop as dry as possible and after cutting, try to wilt for 24 hours. These measures will increase crop dry matter, thus reducing the volume of effluent produced and improving the quality of the silage. Grass ensiled above 25% DM will produce very little effluent. The vast majority of effluent will be produced in the first seven to ten days after ensiling. It is particularly important to be vigilant at this time and ensure all effluent is collected and stored appropriately.
Maintenance and management of silage and effluent storage facilities
As silage effluent is corrosive, before filling the silo, inspect the walls and floor to ensure they are free from cracks, are impermeable and no effluent can escape. Carry out any necessary repairs. Consider lining silo walls, particularly at joints, to protect them from corrosion, help seal the silo and improve silage quality. Earth banked silos must be lined with an impermeable membrane.
All silos must have a channel to collect effluent and must be kept clear of debris to prevent overflows. Direct effluent to a suitable storage tank using channels or pipes. Roofed silos will produce less effluent than unroofed silos as there is reduced run-off entering collection tanks.
Round bales can be stored in fields and on permeable hard core areas not less than 10 m from any watercourse. If placed on impermeable surfaces, such as concrete, any effluent produced should be collected and managed in the same way as effluent from a silage pit.
Effluent collected and stored can be spread on land, always ensuring it is diluted before spreading, to prevent leaf scorch. Only spread when weather conditions are suitable and allow a buffer zone of 10 m from watercourses or 3 m if using Low Emission Slurry Spreading Equipment (LESSE).
Aftercare of newly planted hedgerows and trees
Aftercare of new hedgerows and areas of tree planting is essential to ensure successful establishment. It is disappointing, having gone to all the trouble of planting, to see a new hedge or trees smothered by weeds. Weeds will compete with the woody plants for light, water and nutrients and can reduce the years’ growth to zero. Control weeds be by tramping, hand weeding, applying a mulch, for example bark chippings, or very careful application of an herbicide using a hand held weed wiper.
Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) compliance
If you are an EFS (Wider and/or Higher) participant, please ensure you read your scheme agreement in detail. Make sure you install/manage all options and capital items exactly as detailed in the EFS Information Sheets (available on the DAERA website). Failure to comply with the ‘Requirements and Controls’ in the Information Sheets may lead to penalties being applied to your payment. In addition, if you do not fully complete what you claimed (on your Single Application Form in May 2022) for length/area/units for any option or capital works, you must complete an EFS SAF3 form to reduce your claim accordingly.
Management of grassland habitats
Grassland habitats must be grazed, otherwise the land will revert to scrub with consequent loss of biodiversity. In the EFS, different habitats have specific grazing regimes. For example, purple moorgrass and rush pasture must be grazed extensively between 1st May and 31st December at an average stocking rate not exceeding one Livestock Unit (LU) per hectare in each year. Grazing is not allowed between 1st January and 30th April inclusive. Undergrazing and overgrazing, including severe poaching, are not permitted. To help you manage the numbers and types of livestock and the length of the grazing rotations to meet the grazing requirements, there is an EFS(H) ‘Stocking Rate checker tool’ on the DAERA website. You can use the information from the Stocking Rate checker for record keeping which is a mandatory requirement of the EFS.
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