Both herds will be equal in stock numbers and feed inputs but one herd will use the covered stand-off feed pad every night over the winter and calving and as milkers during very wet conditions while the control herd will be on standard paddock wintering.
The winter pad herd will be feed the same grass area as the control herd but will be on-off grazing and will get their supplements on the pad. The aim of the trial is to assess the effects and economics of the covered pad wintering.
This will include pasture pugging, pasture growth, supplementary feed utilisation, milk production , stock health, calculated environmental effects any other issues that may arise.
Over May while setting up the farm for the new trial the mixed age cows have been wintered as one herd and fed PKE supplement on the feed pad to achieve target pasture cover and cow condition by June first.
May was still quite a challenging month with the wet weather but a reasonable average cover of 2400 kg DM/ha was achieved by June first while cow condition at 4.7 average is adequate but behind target although had improved over the month.
Some extra silage has been purchased to have equal supplements for each herd and avoid feeding PKE in the paddock.
Currently both farmlets have a 3.4 Jersey cow/ha stocking rate with the cows on around 21 to 23 m²/cow of grass for a 130 day rotation. This equals 4.4 kg DM/cow/day of grass plus they are getting 3.3 kg DM of silage.
Management will remain as this now through to calving. After the very wet autumn to late May the past three weeks have been relatively pleasant and pasture growth above average at 17 kg DM/ha/day.
Pasture pugging has not been much of a problem but soils are still quite wet and small amounts of rain have resulted in some pasture pugging damage.
