Autumn-Saved Grass Is Invaluable To Early-Calving Cows

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 45, 17 May 1950, Page 5

Autumn-Saved Grass Is Invaluable To Early-Calving Cows

Autumn-saved pasture is invaluable for early calving cows and provides the best insurance against sleepy sickness in ewes. Therefore the Department of Agriculture re - commends that, if necessary, silage be fed to cows now to enable some paddocks to be shut up. Fields reserved to provide grass for milking cows next July and August should be dominantly ryegrass; short-rotation ryegrass is a stronger winter grower than perennial ryegrass and on suitable land the Department considers that mixture of equal quantities of shortrotation and perennial ryegrass are excellent for this purpose. Feed cannot be saved after all the fields on the farm have been grazed bare in early winter; fields must be closed while the grass is still growing, •and that necessitates early-autumn supplementary feeding.

In most North Island dairy-farm-ing districts grass growth continues until mid or late June. The closing of fields should be started in late Aprif . and continued until midJune. An early-closed field usually gives two grazings and a laterclosed field one grazing of saved grass from late winter to early spring.