Grass is flying it here in Abbeyleix, with growth tipping over 60kg dry matter (DM)per hectare per day. I had a cover of 200kg DM per livestock unit (LU) on my last walk, so I’ll need to keep a close watch to make sure it doesn’t get away from me. Pre-grazing covers are sitting at 1,600kg DM/ha, and I’m keen to keep them from creeping up any higher as demand is strong at 64kg DM/ha.

All cows are calved now, and they’re on 4kg of a breeder nut along with an allocation of 17kg DM of grass.

We’re milking 128 at the moment – down another one, unfortunately, as we lost a cow a few weeks back with an ulcer and a displaced abomasum. Never easy to lose one.

Another cow that came up empty a few weeks ago went off to the mart and made €2,040. I’d much rather she was in-calf, but I won’t complain about the price – it''s good compensation all the same.

Fibre intake

We ran into a small issue when we kicked off the second rotation. The collars were flagging up a few cows as not ruminating enough. We had pulled the silage at that stage, so I brought out a grab of pit silage with the Hustler and spread it around for a bit of fibre. That seemed to settle them, and rumination picked back up after that.

Breeding bulls were fertility tested a few weeks ago, and thankfully all passed. That was a relief, as they’ve all since been sold.

Calves went out to grass three weeks back, and the timing couldn’t have been better – dry since, with barely a drop of rain. They’re still on four litres of milk and have access to straw and ad-lib calf crunch. Thriving away, and we’ll start weaning them at the end of the month.

Calf sales have gone very well this year. There’s been fierce demand and we’ve been getting great prices for them, which is a boost.

Silage

On the silage front, all ground has now been fertilised with 93 units of N, 75 units of K, and topped up with 3,000 gallons of slurry. Some paddocks also got a bag per acre of a 16% P compound after the soil samples showed a need – our slurry is testing low in K. We’re following cows with one bag per acre of 19-0-15 each week for now.

Cows are doing 31 litres, with solids moving about a bit. Butterfat has been anywhere from 3.69% up to 4.64%, and protein is sitting between 3.52% and 3.63%. Somatic cell count is a bit up and down – 97,000 on the low end and up to 207,000 at times.

We used garlic tubes on a few that flagged on the first milk recording. It’s supposed to help draw out infection, and it looks like it might be doing the job.

Outside the parlour, life has gotten that bit busier – our little boy arrived three weeks ago, a month ahead of schedule. Mammy and baby are doing great, but needless to say, things are a bit hectic on the home front.

Lastly, I’m on the lookout for a new farm manager. If anyone out there is interested or knows someone who might be, don’t hesitate to get in touch.