Musings of the grass whisperer
When people ask me what I do, I often say I am a professional grass grower and if the grass growing Olympics was on at the moment I’d be an outside chance.
As I walk around the farm, I keep on the move-not because I’m worried about snakes, but because the grass is growing so quickly that if I stand still for too long the ryegrass might spring up and tip me over!
It is most unusual to have new season grass laying over because it’s gotten too high in the first week of April. I’d like to believe that I’m some kind of grass whisperer, but really it’s just been an ideal start to the season. We have started light grazing but are having to be more cautious as the leaf canopy has gotten ahead of the root development and the cows can pull the whole plant out.
The early grazing is good for tillering and thickening up the sward and having to get it to the point where it is falling over without being nibbled is not ideal.
Did you know an adult dairy cow can eat 25 kg of dry matter per day? And if only a quarter of each mouthful of fresh grass is dry and the rest is water, then they have to eat 100 kg of fresh grass per day to get 25 kg of dry matter?
If you have 1000 cows eating 100 kilograms of wet grass that’s 100 tonnes of grass eaten per day or 700 tonnes per week-hence the need for a professional grass grower!
A word of caution: I’m regularly told that I am fluid with my figures, so don’t put too much stock into anything I say-ever! Don’t you know that 78 per cent of all statistics are made up on the spot? However the basic premise is right-to feed 1000 cows you need an AFL football field full of grass about eight to ten inches high for the morning feed, and then you need another one overnight.
So the fanciful goal is to align the grass production cycle with the cow milk production cycle. Of course, it doesn’t really work like that. Grass grows slow when it’s establishing. It’s good through the Winter if moisture allows and there’s not too many frosts, it goes bananas in the Spring and then slows down and loses it’s quality as it goes to seed at the end of the season.
So when the professional grass grower is off his game, we fill the gaps with grain, pasture or vetch silage, hay, canola meal and, if we are really desperate, almond hulls. Why cows like them I will never know.
A quick shout out to everyone who wished us well lately when we won the Weekly Times award, it was lovely and much appreciated. Must dash, got to keep on the move so the grass can’t tip me over. It’s lucky I’m naturally light on my feet, a bit like a panther!
Until next time,
Paul