Grazing season 2022: Figuring out when to name it a day

The 2022 grazing season might be remembered by most for the challenges it posed at completely different instances of the 12 months.

The spring might be remembered for the climate, because it turned dangerous simply as farmers regarded to get cows out to grass.

Many areas had been then hit with drought-like situations over the summer season months, with dangerous climate as soon as once more making the backend of the season a problem.

Nonetheless, whereas it had its challenges, total, 2022 might be famous as an excellent 12 months for dairy farmers, with costs for milk by no means earlier than seen.

And, between the spells of difficult climate, farms did have an inexpensive 12 months for grass progress.

Grazing season

However the grazing season for a lot of has already come to an finish; anybody nonetheless grazing needs to be ending up within the subsequent few days.

As soon as the ultimate paddock within the rotation has been reached it’s time to home inventory for the winter months and cease grazing for 2022.

The vast majority of farms at the moment are utilizing on/off grazing to get cows to grass with out inflicting harm to land.

The purpose is to maintain cows at grass till mid-November, or each time the ultimate paddock within the rotation has been reached.

If floor situation and grass progress permits, it may be tempting to proceed grazing previous this. Nonetheless, it is necessary that this doesn’t occur; upon getting reached the ultimate paddock within the rotation it is necessary that you don’t graze anymore paddocks.

Doing so will impression on grass availability within the spring and can probably lead to cows needing to be fed further silage and/or be housed for longer.

Enhancements

Now that many farms have ended their grazing season, and others are days away from doing the identical, it’s a good time to look again and decide if any enhancements may very well be made.

Farmers ought to query whether or not there have been any paddocks that underperformed in comparison with the remainder of the paddocks, and if sure, work out why that was the case.

After this, it’s smart to examine whether or not any improvments might be made to the grazing infrastructure on the farm for the 2023 season.

This might embody enhancements round the usage of non permanent electrical fences, again fences or spur roadways

Throughout the spring and autumn, these are important on most farms to make sure that grass is maximised in cows’ diets.

One other change may very well be creating or bettering a storage system, like what’s seen within the image above, which makes all the things simply accessible and tidy.