I mentioned a few weeks back about getting a few willing volunteers with grapes, to help me get my second-cut silage shoehorned into my already quite-full silage pit.
Well, I did manage to get a couple of very competent helpers.
Funny thing is, they did such a good job, we managed to get all the second-cut into the pit, which means I have no bales at all.
Too much silage . . .
Generally, it's not that big of an issue, but due to the amount of rain we’ve been having, I find myself with 50 cattle in the shed, no baled silage and a huge pit that is only in a month, and I don’t really want to open yet.
Long and short of it, I’ve never had as much silage in my life and I’m still out buying bales - you couldn’t make it up!
It won’t be for long though, as things will either dry up and cattle will go back out or I’ll just have to resign myself to the fact that the winter has started early and open the pit.
If that turns out to be the case, then it’s been another pitifully short grazing season in the northwest.
The best grass year I’ve ever seen, but unless things take a drastic turn for the better very shortly, I fear the party’s over.
Saturated
My heaviest land is totally saturated, and the days are getting short to try to dry it.
I put 32 weaned calves back to grass at the weekend on my driest land. Hopefully these shouldn’t do much harm, but I have some dry cows out that, for the harm they’re doing, really should be in the shed as well.
All cows are now weaned and scanned. I have four empty cows - two are empty and being culled by intention and two are not.
I’ve started to feed these four in the shed, along with two thin in-calf cows, and will try to get them away as soon as possible.
I’ll probably just sell them through the mart, hopefully in the next six weeks.
Boosters
All cows and in-calf heifers are now due their salmonella booster and their boluses.
Anything due to calf before Christmas will get a scour booster two weeks after the salmonella.
It's hard to know where to draw the line with vaccinations.
You could vaccinate for everything under the sun and still have problems, but I only vaccinate for things I’ve had issues with in the past and I feel its better to spend money on preventions rather that cure.
At least the cows will be easy handled, as most of them are already in the shed.
Farmer Writes: rightly or wrongly I signed up for the BEAM scheme