Dairy Newsletter - March 2025

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In this month's edition:

• Top five tips for March
  1. Milk recording – if you have not done a milk recording within 60 days of the first cow calving, you lose valuable information in relation to your dry cow therapy performance.
  2. Meeting heifer weights throughout the rearing phase is a key component of profitable dairy farming. Well-reared heifers milk more and have better survival than heifers that are underweight.
  3. Continue to record problems at calving, such as milk fever and/or difficult calving, ketosis, mastitis or lameness. These cows are at risk of poor reproductive performance in the upcoming breeding season.
  4. Assess body condition – cows that lose >0.5 body condition score (BCS) in early lactation have reduced reproductive performance. Identify thin cows that should be put on once-a-day (OAD) milking to improve condition.
  5. Select the cows that you want to breed from and pick your AI bull team. Use the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation’s (ICBF) Sire Advice to match the bulls to the cows for both dairy and beef.  
• Choose the right cows for breeding 
  Much time and effort is put into choosing the AI bull each year and rightly so; however, are you putting as much effort into choosing the right cows to breed from? Ultimately, the bull is only half the story, and choosing the right cows is also vital. 
• March grazing targets 
  The aim is to have about 55-65% of the farm grazed by St Patrick’s Day, according to the standard spring rotation planner. While the rotation planner tracks the proportion of the farm grazed, it does not tell us about the supply of grass available. It also gives no information about the levels of regrowth.  Regrowth levels must be tracked from mid March. 
• Costs and drivers of profit margin 
  Teagasc advisors and dairy farmer clients have completed over 1,000 profit monitors this spring, generating a huge resource for examining drivers of costs and margins. 
• Health & Safety - Safety at calving 
  Almost one third (32%) of farm fatalities involving livestock are from cows with calves, and over 50% of nonfatal farm injuries are associated with livestock handling.