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Grazing Wet PaddocksAs we go into spring, farmers across much of Gippsland are dealing with wet, waterlogged soils with varying amounts of pugging damage.
By Department Of Primary Industries - 17th September 2010 - Back to News Some farmers report damage across the farm, reduced pasture
availability and the need to feed out a lot of silage and hay.
They want to know how to minimise further damage to
encourage as much pasture as possible to come away in the
next few weeks.
Others have less damage and more grass, but are concerned
that paddocks will be too wet to conserve for silage and they
will run into quality problems.
Measurements of pugging damage in Victoria and New
Zealand have shown that pasture utilisation decreased by 30-
70 per cent on undrained, waterlogged paddocks for many soil
types in dairying areas.
Many farmers have tried the following suggestions in the very
wet winters of 1995 and 1996, with reasonable success.
1. Offer two-thirds day feed and one-third night feeds. Offering
only about two-thirds of the 24-hour allocation for the day
feed, and the remaining one third at night offers cows
access to clean, un-fouled pasture for the night feed. Any
shortfall in intakes might need topping up with a
supplement.
2. Offer several day breaks. Move the electric fence once or
twice during the day’s allocation. It means extra work but
cows will have a clean feed each shift, pugging will be
curbed, less supplements will be needed and pasture
utilisation will be much improved over the scenario above.
3. Fill cows before they enter the paddock. Many farmers
believe that by filling the cows with feed (concentrates and
good-quality fodder) at the dairy before sending them to the
paddock means cows walk less and cause less damage to
get their fill
4. Enlarging the area to be grazed. Enlarging the area to be
grazed, that is reducing the rotation length, reduces the
density of hooves in an area and so pugging BUT, does it?
In very wet, windy weather, often more pasture is damaged
due to the larger area that is available to be walked, but the
damage is not so evident. The larger area of muddied
pasture will be of lower quality on the next rotation. So try
not to shorten the rotation for too long, as this will affect the
pasture mass next allocation. Although, if spring is around
the corner and soils start to dry out, this might be a good
option.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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