Balancing the books on silage quantity and quality

Des Powell operates a sheep and beef farm just outside Templederry, Co. Tipperary, in conjunction with his parents George and Frieda. The farm is made up of 97ha of grassland, which is divided into two blocks but all situated within approximately 2km from the main farm.

The land area farmed consists of approximately 65ha of owned land with the remainder of land a mix of short-term rented and leased land. He has 314 mature ewes and is building towards a target of 400 ewes. Des runs Belclare, Suffolk and Charollais rams with the ewes and replacement females are retained from the Belclare and Suffolk rams. There were 100 dry ewe lambs retained this year to be bred as hoggets in 2023. Currently there are 64 older cattle (20-24months) on the farm. This is a mixture of steers and heifers, with some of these being sold presently in the local mart. Also on the farm are 66 weanlings (dairy-bred) some of which were bought as calves last spring and some which were purchased as weanlings in the autumn. They are mostly Hereford and Aberdeen Angus crosses.

Lambing

I am busy getting ready for lambing and the main focus on the farm right now is getting the feeding right. I did my fodder budget last week with my local adviser Michael Daly.  It seems I am short 11 tonnes DM.  So I decided to sell 15 forward stores to reduce demand and make sure I don’t run into problems later in the spring. I have got my silage analysed so that I can plan my meal feeding rate to match the silage quality and make sure ewes are getting enough energy and protein. Silage quality came back variable with some coming back at 75 DMD at 24% dry matter and 14.3% protein, while another sample came back at 69.9% DMD at 26.4% dry matter and 12.9% crude protein. Frank Campion, my BETTER Sheep programme advisor, prepared the feeding plan with me based on ewes being grouped according to litter size firstly, then by raddle marks and by ewe condition.  I have the ewes scanned and condition scored.  Where I have ewes with less than a 3.0 condition score, the doubles will go in with the triplets and the single will go in with the doubles, etc, to give them a little extra feeding.  Below is my feeding plan for the ewes pre-lambing which is based on the 69.9% DMD silage. This is the result of the analysis from back half of the silage pit and the silage I am feeding at the moment.

I have some ration bought but I feel I will need to add soya to the ration in the final three weeks pre-lambing to make sure I have enough bypass protein in the diet to get the colostrum right. The amount I add will be based on the rule of thumb of 100g of soya per scanned lamb.

Protected Urea
I will be going out with protected urea as soon as underfoot conditions allow and soil temperature is sufficiently high (>6oC) for me to get value from it.  I need to do this to make sure I have grass later in the spring. I also feel I have more grass on the farm this spring as I closed up earlier and followed my autumn closing plan.  I didn’t use protected urea last year and in hindsight I probably should have pushed harder to get it.  I suppose it’s up to farmers to drive the demand for protected urea.  It makes total sense for my farm – it’s cheaper than CAN when you account for the higher level of nitrogen in it compared to CAN. 

Des Powell is a participant in the Teagasc Signpost Programme and provided this update in its most recent newsletter. For more information on the Signpost Programme, click here. He is also a particpant in the Teagasc BETTER Farm Sheep Programme.