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Jaylor: Pasture Points to Ponder
The document provides essential tips for managing pastured animals during the summer season. Key recommendations include cutting hay in the afternoon for higher sugar content, ensuring access to water and shade to prevent heat stress, and monitoring animal health regularly. It also stresses the need for vitamin and mineral supplementation as pasture quality declines later in the summer.
Jaylor: Pasture Points to Ponder
- 1. Pasture Points toPonder…
- 2. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Once again the pasture season is upon us, here are a few points to ensure that your pastured animals have a successful season!
- 3. PPPP Pasture Points toPonder…
- 4. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Research suggests that sugars begin accumulating in forages at a steady rate from an hour or two after sunrise and continue until one to two hours before sunset. This suggests starting cutting at mid afternoon and continuing until an hour or two after sundown. This will provide a six to seven-hour cutting period, which is common to many operations. •
- 5. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… What does this mean to you? It has been demonstrated that dairy cows strongly preferred hay cut at sundown compared to hay cut at sunup, due to the high soluble sugar content. Keeping with the old adage “More in, more out”: cows ate more forage and produced more milk when fed late cut hay.This proved true for animals pastured as well as animals fed dry forage. •
- 6. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Pastured animals must have free and easy access to high quality clean water.
- 7. PPPP Pasture Points toPonder…
- 8. Pasture Points toPonder… Remember that if you are pasturing animals this summer they MUST have shade. Cows are susceptible to sun burn in the same manner that humans are, in addition, high exposure to sunlight also increases the possibility of “cancer eye”.
- 9. Pasture Points toPonder…
- 10. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Close-up dry cows in particular must have good shade. Newborn calves are very susceptible to heat and sun and will not survive for long exposed in the mid-day heat.
- 11. PPPP Pasture Points toPonder…
- 12. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Heifers less than one year of age can be stressed on pasture,due to competition, heat and parasites. It recommended that they summer inside.
- 13. PPPP Pasture Points toPonder…
- 14. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… One strategy used by many producers to lessen heat stress, is to pasture animals later in the afternoon and over night; keep them in the barn until after lunch when the sun is at its hottest.
- 15. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Remember that pasture quality drops rapidly, particular if growing conditions are good. Pasture quality adequate to support milking or young animals is often diminished by July. Fence-line or portable manger supplementation of protein &/or energy ingredients are often needed, particularly to heifer groups. Work closely with your nutritionist here.
- 16. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… The most neglected ingredientsin pasture situations are vitamins and minerals. Good consumption of adequate vitamins and minerals often requires a carrier such as grain and this is usually not accomplished on pasture. “Lick” products are often a good remedy to this situation and ease with labour in the busy summer months.
- 17. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Remember to check on pastured animals regularly. Check body condition score and growth in young animals; watch for any health or injury issues. It is distressing, unnecessary and often very costly to repair “wrecks” in the fall because of summer pasture mismanagement.
- 18. PPPP Pasture Points to Ponder… Remember to bring animals in at the end of the pasture season, and this is NOT the first snowfall! Animals out of the barn are “easy” to manage. But by mid to late summer pastured animals require so much supplementation that it is usually easier simply to bring them back into a more controlled environment. As with the above point, avoid “wrecks”, bring them back in early, not late!