This week, Tullamore Farm grew 68kg of grass which is well above our demand of 41kg/DM/ha/day. There are 14 days ahead of stock currently stocked at 3.08LU/ha or 2,073kg/ha. Clean-outs have been good and straw has been stopped as a tetany prevention method and licks are being provided in paddocks beside drinkers.
After this week’s grass walk, 2.65ha was mowed on Tuesday and baled on Wednesday evening. If rain comes at the end of the week, there may be more to mow out next week. We have 7.12ha taken out for a reseed and plan to spray off another 1.47ha this week.
Grass seed that went in on 20 April has struck but needs rain. This was reseeded using a min-till machine with 14kg Abergain/acre, along with 1kg of Aber herald clover/acre. It also received 2.5 bags of 0:7:3 per acre and two tonnes of lime per acre.
Breeding
Breeding started on 1 May and 45 of 87 were submitted for AI on Wednesday 10 May. Thirteen out of the 15 heifers have been bred to AI also and the Aberdeen Angus bull was turned out with this group of heifers on Tuesday 9 May.
Twenty-three April-calved cows are also running with one of the Limousin stock bulls. Cows are inseminated at midday each day. Cows were tail-painted but tail paint has become very dry, which means extra attention at heat checking is needed. No vasectomised bull is being used.
Infrastructure costs on the Tullamore Farm