The biggest problem with grass growth this year is the harshness at night, with low temperatures and a northwesterly wind, Jack Murphy, from Kilkenny said.

“We have lots of silage as we took silage off a farmer last year, luckily enough. We’re currently feeding first-cut silage from this year and second-cut is growing away, but it is not where we want it to be, we are considering zero-grazing it instead. It has been very stressful with grass growth this year. I don’t think cows will reach their potential yield because of that. I’d say we haven’t fed silage for six weeks this year, and for the past four weeks we have been feeding 6kg meal.”

James Ryan from Limerick said that cows are milking well, but grass growth has slowed since May.

“We have been feeding extra concentrates to cope with the lack of grass. We were feeding 6kg of concentrates per day, but we’re gone back to 3kg at the minute with the uptake of growth and hopefully if the weather picks up, we will be back to 2kg. We had a good crop of silage in so far, but we’re back on bales. We shouldn’t have to buy in fodder, but aim to get rid of empties and cull cows in time before silage gets expensive,” he said.

Jerome O’Mahony from Cork echoed the above comments.

“This has been a tough year, grass growth is well down, it is not alone cold, but we also have semi-drought conditions. It is challenging, both physically and mentally. We’re coming into August, which is the start of the build-up of all the covers, so time is very short to get extra supplies. I would be giving extra concentrates with the silage to ensure they are getting a fibre source as that is something I can control. It has been a tough year on milk prices too,” he said.