Milking grass in high-yielding cows

John and Anna Booth of Rhual Dairy are joined by grazing consultant Andre van Barneveld for a detailed look at their grassland management to help them improve milk from forage for their high yielding cows.

• Andre van Barneveld has been working with John and Anna Booth of Rhual Dairy Flintshire looking at maximising the value of their grazing platform to increase milk yields
• Grass has many benefits - its highly digestible but it is critical to manage this closely to maximise its benefit
• Andre shared he would recommend turning cows out onto lower covers rather than higher grass covers as these often have lots of dead matetial at their base
• He shared that turning cows out onto higher grass is also likely to do long-term damage to your grazing platform
• Grazing management is a key principle to achieve the target residuals of 1,500 kg/DM/ha throughout the year at a height of 2-3cms
• It is vital to not feed high-yielding cows on high grass covers as the dry matter at the bottom has poor nourishment and then recovers slower once grazed
• Close management of your pasture can yield great profits on a grass-based system if managed closely
• Consider what you are buffer feeding as this will affect what they eat at grass