The home farm

With some Limousins present, it took a few weeks of herding and observing for the new heifers to quiet down. It was a bumper summer for grass; controlling heavy grass covers was the main issue at home leading into the autumn.

The home farm is divided into large paddocks thanks to hedgerows. There is extreme variety in the size of these fields, which adds a thorn to grassland management strategies.

The benefits of paddock grazing have been emphasised in countless livestock production conferences, discussion groups and articles. Taking this advice on board, I wanted to split an area of the farm available for grazing into smaller enclosures. I proposed this plan my father and at first he wasn’t too enthusiastic.

While farmers are conscious of the advantages in the application of a paddock system, the time and expense on implementing the idea can be a deterrent. In my fervour, I assured him I would carry out all the fencing and look after the expense. After leaving my local co-op with my plastic stakes, wire, insulators and drinking troughs for the temporary partitions, I could see why dad warmed to the idea when I said I’d look after the costs.

I put the expense down on a per heifer basis to make it easier to swallow. It will be intriguing to see how these expenses affect profit margins when the heifers are hanging up.

We spread 18:6:12 (N:P:K) fertiliser on the four newly-divided paddocks at a bag/acre and the growth response that was achieved wasn’t expected. Nitrogen (N) is capable of achieving a growth response of 10-15 kg DM grass per kg N applied. The covers on the newly divided paddocks were a bit excessive with pre-grazing sward heights >12cm.

We considered taking one or two of these paddocks out for silage. At a price of €12/bale and autumn grass with a value of €0.10/kg DM, we opted to graze the heavy covers. Grazing paddocks out to a desired residual height of 4cm, to promote regrowth, was an issue due to the heavy covers.

In the end, two and a half rotations were achieved and the heifers thrived well. This was the first year this field was in paddocks – in the future it will be best to spread fertiliser on individual paddocks opposed to the field as a whole.

One heifer in particular wasn’t used to paddock grazing and tended to ignore the electric wire. To my frustration more often than not, she was on the far side of the wire. She was obviously a firm believer in ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’.

This problem was short lived and was fixed by adjusting the power of the electric shock. The field is a good distance from the house so my sister would turn on/off the power at my request via text. Off and on must have a different meaning to her, as I felt the full force of the fence more than once that day.

This week on the farm we plan to take soil samples. I have been researching labs for analysis, with costs of soil sampling varying from €12 to €25/sample. It has been five years since our last soil test so it is important to test this year. Now is a good time to do so before soil temperatures rise and the application of slurry begins.