The attention has turned toward calving preparations on Tullamore Farm this week.

Farm manager Shaun Diver has been power washing and disinfecting all of the calving sheds ahead of the expected arrival of some calves toward the end of next week.

Cows will be selected about a week before they are due to calve and moved into these straw-bedded calving sheds to allow for a safe and hygienic calving area.

It is expected that there will be several heifers calved before the mature cows begin.

The heifers will be calved in a separate shed to the mature cows to prevent bullying and it will also allow Shaun to keep a closer eye on the first-time calvers.

The cows and heifers are currently on an ad-lib silage diet that is being fed in the evenings to encourage calving during the day.

A pre-calver mineral has also been introduced to their diet over the last few weeks and is being fed at a rate of 160g per head per day to both the heifers and mature cows.

Grazing rape

The field of rape is now coming to an end on Tullamore Farm and Shaun is expecting to have to house the 20 weanling heifers that have been grazing it over the past number of weeks at the beginning of the week.

They will be moved on to an ad-lib diet of high-quality grass silage mixed with wholecrop silage alongside 1.5kg of concentrates per heifer per day when housed.

Slurry storage

Due to an extremely mild back-end, the grazing season for the cattle on Tullamore Farm was greatly extended and this had a very positive impact on the slurry levels on-farm.

Due to not being under pressure with slurry levels, Shaun will be waiting until grass growth kicks off before moving any slurry.

Waiting until grass growth kicks off will also allow Shaun to get the best benefit out of the slurry for spring grass growth, which will be very beneficial to cows, calves, ewes and lambs hitting the grass.

Ewe management

With lambing also on the horizon on Tullamore Farm, preparations have also begun. Pregnancy scanning of the entire flock took place recently. Scanning results were very positive this year, with the mature ewe flock scanning in at 190%.

After scanning, Shaun separated the ewes into their relevant groups based on litter size. The ewes carrying triplets were housed directly after and started on an ad-lib silage diet.

They were also introduced with 250g per head per day of an 18% protein ewe nut. This rate of concentrate will increase gradually as their energy requirements rise as they get closer to lambing.

This week, the triplet ewes have also been winter sheared. Winter shearing helps to improve ewe intake and leads to lambs having a higher birth weight.

The ewes scanned carrying twins will be housed at the beginning of next week. They will also be winter sheared once they are in and settled.

Once housed, they will be on an ad-lib silage diet before being introduced to concentrates closer to lambing. The body condition score of the ewe will be monitored regularly by Shaun and it will help determine how much and when concentrates will be introduced.

Shaun aims to leave the ewes scanned with singles out for at least another week to 10 days, but this will be completely weather dependent and if conditions deteriorate, they will be housed sooner.

They will also be winter sheared and stared off on an ad-lib silage diet. Shaun also plans to manage the feeding of concentrates to the singles in the same way as the twins by managing body condition score and monitoring lambing dates very closely.