The Health herd moved to once-a-day milking from the 20th of March to allow the herd to remain at a good body condition score until dry off. Some of the lower condition cows have already been dried off.
We are in our last round of grazing, and although we usually aim to leave higher residuals (1700kg DM/ha) than on commercial farms, in our last round we focus on lower residuals (1600kg DM/ha) so the pasture will be good quality when the cows return to the milking platform after calving.
We have also found that a harder grazing on our last round results in improved diversity, as it prevents our clovers, chicory and plantain from being covered by grasses at the end of the wintering period, which grow much faster than our legumes and herbs.
As the days are getting shorter and cooler, we have been extending our round length to around 35 days, and we have needed to start supplementing again with pasture silage, although we are trying to keep this at a minimum to achieve our desired post grazing residual.
