Grazing has been delayed across all Dairylink project farms, but some have managed to graze more than others.

While wet weather and ground conditions have prevented grazing, some project farms have taken advantage of dry parts of their farm and used simple tools like back fencing, grazing for just a few hours per day and being selective on which paddock to graze to help them through.

Using these tools has allowed feed costs to be reduced and helped keep the grass budget on track to be finished the first rotation by 12 April.

What value does spring grass have and can it reduce feed cost on farm?

Project farmer Charles Clarke, Bailieborough, Co Cavan, has had cows out grazing from 12 February. While every day has not been suitable to graze, he currently has 22% of the grazing platform grazed at the start of this week without any major damage to paddocks.

In February, he got 14 days of grazing using on/off grazing, just letting cows out for a few hours each day. In the first week of March, only three days have been suitable to graze.

Even with this patchy start to the grazing season, grass has a key role to play in reducing feed costs on this farm.

Cows go out with a good appetite and intake is budgeted at 6kg DM/cow grazed during the day. If cows returned to graze in the evening, he budgets another 5kg of grass DM, bringing the total grass DM intake to 11kg/cow.

Currently, a high-energy dairy meal is fed at 16% protein. When cows are grazing, 3kg of meal is fed per cow, and if conditions don�t allow grazing, cows remain inside with good-quality silage and 5kg of meal.

Each day Charles gets the cows out, his feed cost per cow stands at �1.63 (�1.26). This includes the cost of growing grass and 3kg of meal being fed.

The alternative of cows inside eating silage and 5kg of meal has a feed cost of �3.16 /cow (�2.44). This means for a 100-cow herd, feed costs can be reduced by �153/day (�118) by getting cows out to spring grass.

Analysis of spring grass shows grass D value to be 82%DM, protein content of 22% and energy of 12ME/kg DM. As a feed, spring grass is an excellent product. It is high in protein, very digestible and has high energy content.

Herd performance on the Clarke farm illustrates the value of spring grass, with cow condition holding very well on freshly calved cows (see Charles Clarke's herd performance in Table 1).