BE CAREFUL!

Here we are. Finishing up the rough winter weather and getting ready to turn the cows and heifers out to pasture. What should be focused on before doing this? There are ground conditions, quality of forage, and nutritional concerns for the animals themselves.

DON’T TRY TO RUSH THE SEASON!

I know that everyone is tired of feeding stored forages, and possibly even starting to run out. But there are real concerns to be considered. It is very important that the frost is out of the ground. You need to pay attention to how the cows will be able to manage the ground conditions and terrain. Things change over the winter. If you have a muddy sloppy mess out there, your cows can injure themselves. In addition to potential injury, allowing the cows to lay on cold wet ground will most likely increase your potential for high SCC and/or mastitis issues. That can cost you a tremendous amount of money. Either in outright expenses or loss of production.

You also need to have concern for your pasture itself. The grasses and legumes need an opportunity grow. Turning the cows out too soon can cause physical damage. If you destroy part of your pasture, you won’t have it later in the season. All of the sudden you are short on pasture and feed for your cattle. This may be a good reason to set aside a pasture or old hay field as a sacrifice lot for early or late season grazing. A sacrifice paddock won’t directly impact your total forage harvest for the current year. In other words, you won’t have to feed forage that you were planning on using through the winter, thus putting you in the dilemma of making your forage last through the season. Running short on pasture can have a snowball effect on having adequate forage through the winter. In addition to this issue, if you are certified organic, you now have to make sure that you have fulfilled your dry matter source requirements. It's always something!

We’re not done yet. You must make sure that you are providing the best possible pasture for your cows from a nutritional standpoint. Feeding frozen or even just heavily dewed pasture can cause additional issues. Bloat is never fun to deal with, but a common issue under these conditions. Make sure that you remember to increase the magnesium levels for your cows for the first 30 to 45 days to prevent bloat and grass tetany. You should really let your pasture grow to at least 10” before you turn the cows loose on it. This assures that the forage has a chance to develop. Providing adequate nutrition to your animals. If you start too early with your grazing, you could stunt the growth of your pasture as well as jeopardizing the health of your animals.

To sum it up. Just make sure that everything is truly ready before you turn the cows out.

HAVE A GREAT GRAZING SEASON!