Bale grazing dry cows

[DairyNerd]

Thinking of gingerly trying some winter deferred grass/bale grazing for half our dry cows to take pressure off housing and straw this year, I then have enough space to loose house the remaining cows. Thinking of shutting up mid august, we grow plenty of autumn grass here and are dry so it will be long by grazing and should hold the cows up well. If my maths is right 5 acres of deferred grass with 40 bales should do 30 dry cows for 60 days. Any thoughts or tips? How is the sward afterwards? My thought is to try the next field to be reseeded so if it a right mess it doesn't matter too much.

 

[sidjon]

2 Guy's next to us, out wintered 700 cow's between them and youngstock ,never seen them reseed, but one is beef and other is drystock farm, as milks at different place, am probably going back to outwinter again and would be back on half roots half grass and feed out bales with hustler like we use to,

 

[Cows 'n grass]

I think mid august is too early to shut grass up, if we have a bad rust year like last year you might have less but October than if you'd grazed it. I would wait until mid September, graze it tight and then feed it well They will waste a fair bit so I wouldn't work on harvesting more than 2t DM/ha and then bales at 220 kg DM average.

 

[DairyNerd]

I think mid august is too early to shut grass up, if we have a bad rust year like last year you might have less but October than if you'd grazed it. I would wait until mid September, graze it tight and then feed it well They will waste a fair bit so I wouldn't work on harvesting more than 2t DM/ha and then bales at 220 kg DM average.

Thanks

 

[In the pit]

Used to do 3 cuts then put fym/fert on and shut up and then feed a strip of grass plus 1 bale of silage to every 25 cows
Was doing this 20 + years ago before every one started doing it
Depending on amount of rain through the winter used to get away with a vaderstad drill run over it to put a bit of seed back in and then stick the flat roll over it

 

[Farmer Keith]

I work on 1 bale to 25 cows per day also but it’s far from an exact science, with 30 cows on 5 acres you won’t be feeding too much grass so 40 bales feels a little tight. Hay is better for dry cows as they can get fat on silage in our experience.

Run a 5-7 year rotation, following outwinterers with spring barley then back to grass. I don’t think we’d get away without a full reseed of some description afterwards but we get over 1.5m of rainfall annually here.

Id agree with the September shut up date. It can rot away particularly if there’s a lot of freeze/thaw events early winter.

 

[DairyNerd]

I work on 1 bale to 25 cows per day also but it’s far from an exact science, with 30 cows on 5 acres you won’t be feeding too much grass so 40 bales feels a little tight. Hay is better for dry cows as they can get fat on silage in our experience.

Run a 5-7 year rotation, following outwinterers with spring barley then back to grass. I don’t think we’d get away without a full reseed of some description afterwards but we get over 1.5m of rainfall annually here.

Id agree with the September shut up date. It can rot away particularly if there’s a lot of freeze/thaw events early winter.

Thanks. I can put extra bales out no problem so maybe I should put 50-60 out. We can put into forage rape for the summer if we need to, then Autumn reseed but would like to graze it before putting the forage rape in if it isn't too much of a mess.