The Dairy Edge

Aisling Claffey, Teagasc ruminant nutrition specialist, joins Stuart Childs to discuss the importance of dry cow minerals to the success of your calving season.

Aisling explains that magnesium is key. Pre-calving minerals need to supply enough magnesium to support the cow’s ability to mobilise calcium around calving. She also highlights the importance of vitamins—particularly vitamin D and the role it has for milk fever prevention also.

Consistency is vital with minerals. Missing minerals for a day or two can matter, especially when many cows are close to calving. As people are getting better at their soil fertility, Aisling believes people should test silage for minerals annually as silage potassium can vary from year to year and as this may interfere with magnesium absorption, farmers need to be aware of the feed that they are feeding. 

Milk fever can have wider consequences. Low calcium can affect muscle function, calving and rumen contractions, and intake. It is known as a gateway disease with transition-cow problems as well as mastitis all likely to follow so prevention is important and key to this is a good mineral fed consistently.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher highlights the top actions that need to be done, including:
Average farm cover dropping
Assess AFC on farm
Assess % area grazed
Implement on-off grazing

Read more from the latest Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-27thOct

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

As we come towards the end of the lactation, getting the drying-off process right is important to ensure good udder health and set cows up correctly for the next lactation. 

This week, James Dunne is joined by Padraig O’Connor from Teagasc to go through best practice when drying off, from planning and preparing cows to carrying out the process and managing cows in the days afterwards.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher highlights the top actions that need to be done, including:
Prioritise grazing residuals
Update autumn grass budget
Prepare for changing weather
Read more from the latest Grass10 newsletter at:
https://pasturebase.teagasc.ie/Grass10%20Weekly.pdf?=20261023 

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

Martina Gormley, dairy specialist in Athenry, Co. Galway, joins Stuart Childs to discuss a survey on winter feeding practices that she completed with a number of farmers across the country over the winter period 2025/26.

The first thing Martina highlights is that winter feeding takes significant time. The survey of more than 70 dairy farmers found an average of 14 hours per week spent feeding silage, with wide differences between farms. Average time was six minutes per livestock unit per week.

Some things can influence the speed of feeding out such as farm layout and equipment. Limited feed space, using several yards, transporting silage and handling bales with unsuitable equipment were common sources of creating extra work. 

Around half of farmers said they lacked enough feed space, and 40% of the people surveyed were still using a fork or similar tool at some stage during the feeding process.

A starting point for farmers is to time their own feeding routine and target the main bottleneck. Some of the main options that will improve speed are improving feed space, using suitably sized grabs or bale-handling equipment be that a bale slice or bale unroller. 

Obviously, having silage closer to livestock will also lend to the speed of feeding and is something to factor in for any future developments.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com