Tips for feeding the freshly calved cow whilst also hitting grazing targets during the first grazing rotation

Dairy advisor, Grainne Hurley, joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s episode of The Dairy Edge to provide tips on balancing the competing objectives of feeding the freshly calved cow and hitting grazing targets during the first grazing rotation. Grainne recommends that all farmers complete a farm walk to quantify how much grass is available on farm right now. Based on farms she works with, average farm cover is 1,033 kg DM/ha (range 712-1,205). Knowing how much grass you have will inform how much area you can graze per day. Grainne explains that cows have a low intake after calving, eating approx. 11 kg dry matter/day, increasing by 0.5-1 kg per day until peak intake is reached at week 7 of lactation. Grainne quantifies the quality of spring grass (1.03 UFL, 21% crude protein) v 70 DMD silage (0.8 UFL, 13% crude protein) and given the superior feed quality, she recommends that farmers maximise the amount of grazed grass in the diet in early lactation. For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/ The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com