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It’s been a quiet week on Tullamore Farm. Forty-five acres of second-cut silage was lifted last weekend in good conditions.
Bringing back this ground into the grazing rotation will lower demand and reduce the pressure on the current grazing block.
Farm manager Shaun Diver is in two minds whether to take out three to four paddocks with strong covers.
Shaun said: “The paddocks have about 2,500kg DM/ha on them, which is strong, but it’s all leafy grass, so the cows could probably handle it.
"We’ve had very strong growth this week and it’s giving a couple of good days, so growth will probably continue. If we get a few dry days over the weekend, I think we’ll whip them out.
"That’s the last of the paddocks to come out, as we need to start thinking about building grass towards autumn at this stage.”
Grass growth
The farm grew 65kg DM/ha/day over the last seven days. Demand is currently running at 45kg DM/ha/day and the average farm cover is 865kg DM/ha/day.
While taking out the silage will drop the farm cover, if good growth continues it will mean the farm will hit its target of hitting 1,100 average farm cover by mid-September.
“September is a big month for grass here, as we will be flushing the ewes and running out of grass would have a negative impact on breeding for the 2021 lamb crop.
"Cows with bulls and cows with heifers were separated this week and all calves are now creep grazing ahead of cows, along with lambs.
"Bull calves are getting 2kg/head/day. Heifer calves were being fed, but this has stopped since grass growth came back up to normal levels."
So basically I loose twenty minutes a day talking to our incalf heifers, it often leaves me late for other important things but is there anything more important than quiet cattle ???? we will offer a some of these for sale in October!! #TullamoreFarm @farmersjournal @ajwwoods pic.twitter.com/jZJ0uuTe0u
— Shaun Diver (@diver_shaun) August 6, 2020
Tetany
There was an incidence of tetany on the farm this week - a second-calving cow that didn’t appear to be under pressure sucking a heifer calf.
It has prompted licks to be reintroduced and cows appear to be licking them. There was a few wet nights in the last few days and maybe the combination of leafy paddocks and wet nights brought it on.
Cal-mag is difficult to feed along when cows are grazing with calves, so Shaun says he will stick with the licks for now.
Hard beat the Charolais!! FSZ calf off a first cross LM cow, on #TullamoreFarm breeding beats any amount of feeding ?? @ajwwoods @FJBeef pic.twitter.com/yf3Mz5zBW8
— Shaun Diver (@diver_shaun) August 6, 2020
Sheep
Another 10 lambs were drafted this week, with a further draft due in two weeks’ time.
Lambs have been a little slower this year. There was an issue with scald in the ewe lamb group.
Foot bathing wasn’t curing them and Shaun took the decision last week to spray any affected lambs with alamycin spray and it seems to have cleared things up.
Ewe lambs are currently being fed 200g of concentrates per head per day and ram lambs are being fed 400g/head/day. Lambs are grazing ahead of the two cow groups and are being fed in troughs in each paddock.
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