Zero Grazing

[Shep]

Anybody on here zero grazing? Our cows are normally out during the day and housed at night, we have more cows this year and won't be able to graze them every day, I don't want to graze for 14 or 15 days then have to house of a week before they can get back out again.
We normally feed M+15 or 20 depending on stage of lactation with good silage wholecrop and concentrate, then fed up to yield in the parlour.
Would you be able to get M+15-20 from fresh grass alone? I'd expect intakes to be at about optimum. If we could bring grass to them and cut out concentrate at the feed fence, plus make a third or so less silage, it would make a zero grazer look like a very good investment I had thought about getting a local lad with a wagon to lift a load every morning, he'd do it for £40, I was going to mow a bit every afternoon for him, but if I have to go out every day with the mower i'd have the grass home with me in a zerograzer.
The cows will still get out, there are 6 handy paddocks beside the house and I intend to rotate them around these as loafing areas with access back to feed all the time.
these are pretty milky holsteins with a handful of fresians through them, i'm just a bit concerned about taking the concentrate out of the base ration and if they'd get enough energy and drymatter into them from grass as the maximum I could feed in parlour would be 10kg .

 

[Headless chicken]

Could you not make more silage? IMO Holsteins need consistency and that's what you get with tmr

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Most of the big farms I supply are storage feeding , I think zero grazing is one of those things that seems a good idea but don't work in practise

 

[cattow]

If grazing around the yard gets short you can zero-graze for few days and maintain the consistency until grass comes back.

 

[Kiss]

Graze your low yielders house the highs?

You could graze everyday just allocate less and feed more

 

[james ds]

Hi Shep , hope the dairy job is going well , there are a good few dairy farmers zero grazing around here and they all love it , much more grass off the same area as when they were grazing it , less waste and the milk is better quality than on the silage diet , higher protein and butter fat , they were getting an extra 8cent / lt on the zero grass compared to the trm diet . One guy grazes at night and draws a load of zero grass every day as he has little land at the yard . He has great praise of the system.

 

[Propperjob]

Started Monday an the boss thinks the milk as gone up by a 1000ltrs since we started but there as been a few freshly calf'd cows

 

[Shep]

My advisor tells me he has clients doing it and they can average M+15 over the year. That would work into a £30,000 saving in meal if you were able to zerograze for 6 months (in theory of course) That and paying for 100acres less silage to be made so £6000 on top of that, it seems like a no brainer but why are there not more doing it? There has to be a catch somewhere!
Another year like 2012 would banjax the idea as you couldn't travel with a zerograzer here. Only for silage we would have been beat as you had to wait of those rare 2 or 3 dry days for the ground to skin enough to travel on, I can't have seen us out every day with a zero grazer. Even at the minute it would be touch and go and wet grass every day for the last week anyay. I guess you have to be flexable and feed silage in the really bad times, but then that would involve a bit of chopping and changing which is not good.

 

[Headless chicken]

Add in running cost of machine and your time and you may see why.

Trouble is with zero grazing it has to be done all day every day. Another job to be done in my opinion.

 

[Shep]

Add in running cost of machine and your time and you may see why.

Trouble is with zero grazing it has to be done all day every day. Another job to be done in my opinion.

It would create another job, but it would do away with filling and emptying a diet feeder so it and the handler would be parked for the summer, which would halve running costs and depreciation on those two machines. I'd say six of one and half a dozen of the other when it comes to time/depreciation etc.
My main concerns are the effect on cows, yield, fertility etc.

 

[Shep]

Most of the big farms I supply are storage feeding , I think zero grazing is one of those things that seems a good idea but don't work in practise

I can't see it working for very big farms either, the full of one of these machines is enough for 60-80 cows per day, if you had say 500 cows then you would need 8 or 10 loads a day! I know of an outfit near us doing it and in some instances they are going 20 miles to get a load. I wouldn't want to be doing more than 2 load a day.

 

[Shep]

Hi Shep , hope the dairy job is going well , there are a good few dairy farmers zero grazing around here and they all love it , much more grass off the same area as when they were grazing it , less waste and the milk is better quality than on the silage diet , higher protein and butter fat , they were getting an extra 8cent / lt on the zero grass compared to the trm diet . One guy grazes at night and draws a load of zero grass every day as he has little land at the yard . He has great praise of the system.

Which machines are they using james? There are some flimsy looking Italian ones about, but some ex Keenan fella is making them in Carlow and they look a far better job, plus 3 years parts and labour warranty.

 

[Turboman]

hope to start zero grazing later in the year when I get my machine made, but only as a wet weather option. my aim is to have cows grazing day and night but if a really bad day was forecasted I think it would be possible to zerograze a load of grass the night before in dry conditions then keep the cows in for a day til ground improves again. the benefit would be that the cows diet isnt changing in lieu of feeding round bales or pit silage for a day or two.

Good quality grazed grass should have a protein and ME much higher than silage and with a good sward 23-24 litres of milk is achievable. Even taking a figure of 20 litres of milk this is still about double the output compared to good quality silage.

I know of a farmer who zerograzes and he says he cant wait til spring each year as he can easily cut concentrates by 5kg/cow. hes running 400 cows so thats 2ton of concentrates a day saved. If you take a very modest meal price of £250/ton he is saving 15 grand a month on feeding costs alone, he told me it is an extra chore but when you consider the time it takes to herd cows and change fencers twice daily its not really adding time to his workload.

 

[Shep]

hope to start zero grazing later in the year when I get my machine made, but only as a wet weather option. my aim is to have cows grazing day and night but if a really bad day was forecasted I think it would be possible to zerograze a load of grass the night before in dry conditions then keep the cows in for a day til ground improves again. the benefit would be that the cows diet isnt changing in lieu of feeding round bales or pit silage for a day or two.

Good quality grazed grass should have a protein and ME much higher than silage and with a good sward 23-24 litres of milk is achievable. Even taking a figure of 20 litres of milk this is still about double the output compared to good quality silage.

I know of a farmer who zerograzes and he says he cant wait til spring each year as he can easily cut concentrates by 5kg/cow. hes running 400 cows so thats 2ton of concentrates a day saved. If you take a very modest meal price of £250/ton he is saving 15 grand a month on feeding costs alone, he told me it is an extra chore but when you consider the time it takes to herd cows and change fencers twice daily its not really adding time to his workload.

Good to hear something positive turboman. Are you making a machine yourself?

 

[james ds]

Which machines are they using james? There are some flimsy looking Italian ones about, but some ex Keenan fella is making them in Carlow and they look a far better job, plus 3 years parts and labour warranty.

The Itialian machines are too light and the mowers are crap , the best one Ive seen down here is made by Condell Engineering , he is better known for making the feedall tub feeders , belmac are making a good few now and then you have the guy in Cavan who was the first at them his are called Zero Grazer, Condells would be the best value for money.

 

[Baling Hay]

Why not open the gate and let the cows graze with no machinery, no bedding cubicles all summer, less mastitis etc.?

 

[cattow]

Why not open the gate and let the cows graze with no machinery, no bedding cubicles all summer, less mastitis etc.?

What if you don't have the land around the holding ? I zero graze but only let them in the cubicles on a wet night .

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Grass was heating up if they cut to much and cows were hungry if not enough , would think its hard to get it right

 

[RobFZS]

my dad used to go to a small overgrown old horse paddock with a inline rotaflail and feeder trailer away from the farm that was rented and fill it up and buffer feed/ zero graze during the summer, pretty good if you have 50-60 cows, trailer was always licked clean

 

[Shep]

Why not open the gate and let the cows graze with no machinery, no bedding cubicles all summer, less mastitis etc.?

Life's not that simple Steakeater, Did you read my first post?