Cozzie Livs
Grazing crops are up and out of the ground which is a great start to the winter feed situation. On native paddocks the medics, turnip and other broadleafs are growing well under the summer grass canopy. Don’t be too hasty to swing the gates and let the stock onto these paddocks though - new growth will be high in water and low in dry matter, so every bite needs to be as big as possible! This means the plants need to have decent length and density if the animal is going to be able to eat enough each day.
To give you an example of a feedtest on a grazing wheat which was 85% moisture (15% dry matter). A 300kg steer could potentially eat 9kg of dry matter, based purely on the low amount of fibre in the crop, however when we take the moisture content of the crop into account, this equates to 60kg of crop on an ‘as fed’ basis. That’s a lot of grazing!
Studies in dairy cows show that dry matter intake increases in a linear fashion as the dry matter content of the diet increases and that once the moisture gets >50% of the diet it affects lactating dairy cows’ ability to eat enough for maintenance. There are few studies done in beef cattle, but it is thought that once the moisture content gets beyond 83% it is production limiting. Cows actually undergo bite fatigue
So, what to do? Ensure you’ve got plenty of growth and that every mouthful is a full one.
LLS recommends 1500-2500kgDM/ha (however this is not specific for crop). The trial work with mineral licks saw gains of 1.75kg/hd/day were all grazed with plenty of dry matter 3000kg/DM or better. GRDC says graze between 1800-3000kg DM/ha and that the best cereal regrowth occurs when there is 1000-1400kgDM/ha left on the paddock.
Oh, and of course, ensure you’ve got some lime and salt out!
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