Grazing 2021

No nothing in 69 stores out that are about 430+LW as well as 8 finishing cattle moves 15 finishing cattle over the last fortnight.

Just 10% of stock in. Weaning empties and a 1st Calver. Just as easy to put these in and give hay. Still a good bit of grass around but ground here is starting to go. I will probably have half the stock in by the end of the week. Will just be a little easier due to being part time.

Has been a great back end for here. Excellent growth, but excellent ground conditions up to the past week. September is the key month to shortening the winter.

Replacements in....Cows will be in tonight for 1st time. 11 daytime grazings left.

Cows not yet, some younger animals are. Got a lot rain yesterday but not as much as forecast. Wednesday looks the next bad day so that will probably put them in by night. Day until the first week of Nov hopefully then. It's been a very good back end.

Why not give hay in the shed. Will help them settle after wet grass and then ease into silage. Doing it for years and it works well. Nothing nicer on the tummy's, like a dry feed when coming in off wet grass. Really settles them.

Our stocking rate here is just on the 170kg/ha with our sheep and we won't have what grass is here grazed in a month and, as you say, it's still growing

There are many reasons to have cattle indoors in some places.

The mallet shoved up the dog's hole might be there for sound medical reasons..

You could have the same conditions in May as you have now, maybe worse, I've seen plenty months of April and May where it's cold with no growth and hailstone showers.

If that's your reason for housing them now in this mild weather then you should be looking at an alternative farming system

We housed the majority of feeding cows yesterday as all they were doing was ploughing up the paddock and getting stones stuck in their hooves. The sucklers, feeding heifers and young stock are still out but have access to hay (sucklers), the feed barrier (feeding heifers) and meal in the trough for the young stock.

Only place for finishing stock this time of the year is in the shed. Unless you’ve very dry ground and they are a couple of weeks away from finishing.

Dry sucklers are in here. Most of the weanlings are still out bar what’s going to be fed on. I’ll stagger housing to suit here but a lot of the time it’s down to needing to for the easy life as I’m away working in the dark and home in the dark.

There is a very big difference in a field damaged now and a field damaged a bit next may, even if conditions are worse then.

Yes and No. I have moved completely from winter finishing. I even find trying to polish cattle off in the shed for 6-8 weeks is only a break even game with a lot of dairy cross stock. I have eight left. There is the bones of a ton of ration in the bin. I want to convert that back into cash.

I will try to pick paddocks with lighter covers and use stores to eat out heavy covers.

Feeding cattle outside if you are working long hours off farm in a non runner this time of year but I know what you are saying.

The reality in the west of the country on all average to reasonable land after another days rain and if the wether stays unsettled 30 of them cows would have 30 acres ploughed in a fortnight .In the east it would be a different story probably .In the south west here we would have at least 2 inches of rain every week with the last 5 weeks so the rain ie taking its toll at this stage ,same story every year dam lucky to get to the 1st of november and any day more is a bonus grazing for adult cattle

Yep, I agree with Eastern too.

There's frost now on May day and hardly any in October November.

Im farming wet land too, but this year, more than ever I'll be takeing every day's grazeing now I get, and will aim for a may month turn out if so be it.

The people giveing out about calender farming regarding spreading slurry, contradict themselves, with their determination of calender grazeing.

At the end of the day eastern has a valid point for his farm and lots more like him.

Land that gets damaged now can get a run of a chain harrow in spring when ground condition allow. Then a fast run with an empty land roller.

All stock out full time still, using cows to get thru as much as I can but weather nearly beating me. Have the wettest ground grazed but the rain ain't coming in small bits and pieces either. In calf heifers will be housed by the wkend and calves the following week weather dependant. If the end of the week comes bad and cows are forced in I may use the remaining ground for calves. Have only 5 empty cows to offload and possibly a bull or two.

Just on the talk of grazing by calender etc, it is just about having enough grass in spring. If spring demand is low its not such an issue but if you are regularly grazing into December and can't get stock out till april/ May then the main reason is that the farm has been grazed too tight along with any damage taking longer to recover in terms of moisture.

All still out here, but it is starting to poach in places because the heavy deluges of rain recently don't drain away as quickly at this time of year. Still plenty of grass ahead of them so might end up getting the cows checked for being in calf and then split them across a number of fields. Insufficient sheep numbers to handle what's on the ground. Some of our flatter ground waterlogs in the hollows very quickly - when walking on it, its like a sponge. Luckily we just have some young stock on it so they are not hard on it - although the wet grass at this time of year is making their dung very loose and they are starting to get dirty.

Unsure as to where to give them a dose now or hold off until they are housed. Incidentally I was looking for a dose for them - was thinking of a drench for this time of year as a pour-on would get washed off and then I seen Cydectin Triclamox which is advertised as rainproof - only issue is the withdrawal period is a hefty 143 days - however they came up with that number.

Yip - awful day here too. Shifted cattle into a new paddock and am keeping eye on them like a hawk as there might be an increased risk of staggers in this weather when putting them into good fields of grass. Still got a pile of grass ahead of them so will try to get it grazed down.

Still trundling along. Will probably start housing from the start of the second week in November. Stock are in 4 main bunches. Biggest is 24 stores grazing off slight heavy ground. A few land drains went into it about 6-7 years ago it took 3-4 years to properly dry out bit it is holding up well at present.

21 in a other bunch are being strip grazed through a heavy cover still good clean out. Another bunch of 12 are going similarly. There is 8 finishing cattle in a paddock with decent cover they are on 6 kgs/ day of barley/ maize/ hulls. There is some hitting 30 months the third week in November so will move them around then

Got some cows out with their calves - we'd have a history of it here. Lost a few when I was a lot younger before the vet diagnosed the problem.

They get FlowMag in water and Opti-Mag throughout the season. Touch wood we haven't lost one since we figured out the problem. Wet weather means they don't go to the trough often enough so the Opti-Mag is supplementary. Before going out of shed, they'd get their first Opti-Mag of the season to get it in and releasing into their system.