As I write, we are still waiting for a significant period of warmer weather, which means a lot of silage making has been pushed back from late May right through to the middle of June. Luckily, the cold spring seems to have held back the growth of grass meaning that the quality of grass silages has still been high, despite the lateness of the cuts.

There seems to have been a return to better clamp management this year too, with both a buck rake tractor and somebody rolling the clamp at the same time giving excellent consolidation. This also gives the driver on the buck rake the opportunity to do a better job of filling the clamp in the first place. I was always taught ‘look after the sides and the middle will look after itself’ when filling a silage clamp, and that remains the best way to do it, although my girlfriend tells me that that phrase is actually directed at effective buttering of toast!

As we move into July, we’re approaching the time of year that traditionally sees a lot of cows calving in the later summer and into early autumn. As a result there can be a lot of dry cows around, with many of them being managed outside. I’ve been talking to a lot of farmers recently about careful monitoring of both far off dry cows, and closer to calving ‘transition’ cows.

It’s absolutely crucial that these cows are in the peak of condition, as they will be responsible for so much of your autumn milk. Regular body condition scoring is a great way to monitor how they’re doing and we should be targeting a score of 3.0 - 3.5 on a typical Holstein Friesian cow, and taking steps to make sure they maintain that throughout the dry period. Rumen fill scoring can also be a good aid to this, by monitoring whether or not cows are full and have enough to eat. Just be ready to provide some extra forage if intakes start to tail off.

Adam Collantine

Dairy Consultant