The major job over the last few days on Tullamore farm has been making the first cut of silage. On Saturday, 40ac was mowed out. Farm manager Shaun says “it wasn’t an overly heavy crop but it should be excellent quality feed". The grass was lifted on Monday and covered that evening by the contractor, with Shaun’s help.
The major job over the last few days on Tullamore farm has been making the first cut of silage. On Saturday, 40ac was mowed out. Farm manager Shaun says “it wasn’t an overly heavy crop but it should be excellent quality feed". The grass was lifted on Monday and covered that evening by the contractor, with Shaun’s help.
This 40ac has been the first meaningful forage made to date on the farm in 2019. Seven bales of surplus grass were made prior. Shaun says: “I’d much prefer putting as much as we can into the pit than making lots of silage bales.”
Bales will only be made when a small surplus arises and no pit silage is due to be cut.
As things stand, there will be no surpluses coming out in the near future. Growth is strong, without being hectic, at 62kgDM/ha/day. This is just about surpassing demand which is at a high 57kgDM/ha/day, driven by a stocking rate of 4.21LU/ha. Farm cover is spot on at 826kgDM/ha but Shaun says he wouldn’t like to see it going much below 800kg.
Breeding
Breeding is moving along well and from Wednesday, Shaun will be monitoring cows for repeats. In the first cycle, 60 cows out of 80 were submitted for AI.
Over 15 of the 20 cows not yet submitted were late calvers and are still in an anoestrus period. High-quality, fresh grass should help these cows to begin cycling soon. If they have not shown signs of heat within three weeks, they will be given a shot of estrumate.
The three early calvers that have not shown signs of heat will be given estrumate this weekend.
The 41 heifers will have received AI a fortnight ago this Saturday. Next weekend (24 May) will tell all in terms of conception rates. Shaun is very hopeful, however, that conception rates will be strong referencing how pleased the AI technician was with the heifers during insemination.
Drafting bulls
The under 16-month bulls were weighed last week. The average for the group was 615kg with a large number pushing close to 700kg.
Looking at ages, fat covers and weights, 15 bulls will be drafted for slaughter next week. Some of these will include lighter Angus bulls. Shaun explained “the Angus are well fit in terms of fat cover and I don’t think they are going to put on much more weight".
He added: “I know they will be down at 350-360kg carcases but we are getting them off at 14 months of age.”
This year Shaun has been very impressed with the performance of the Simmental bulls, particularly in regards to laying down fat cover.
Lambs
The first lamb weighing of 2019 will take place next week to get an update on performance. Visually they appear to be doing well.
This task will coincide with a nematodirus dose and a vaccination against clostridial disease. They will also be treated with Click to prevent flystrike.
Scalds are also starting to appear in some lambs due to the dry weather and stronger grass so the final task will be to run the lambs through a footbath.
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