Tullamore Farm: clear TB test gets week off to good start

Work on Tullamore Farm got off to a very good start this week with all cattle testing clear for TB on Saturday.

Apart from this, it was a relatively quiet week around the farm allowing for some maintenance work such as fencing and the washing and disinfecting of sheds ahead of the autumn.

Farm manager Shaun Diver said that along with the TB reading, that they also took the bulls away from the main herd.

“We stopped breeding last Saturday after 11 weeks. We were artificially inseminating all the way through and then the bull was left with them after week seven. It’s a Salers bull we were using and we swapped him and the vasectomised bull a few times to make sure all was going to plan.”

We stopped breeding last Saturday after 11 weeks

In the week ahead, Shaun is aiming to scan the in-calf heifers for a second time.

The group of 49 consist of the herd’s replacement heifers, as well as the sale heifers which will be offered this autumn.

Sheep

Having given a footbath to all the lambs earlier this month, they were back in the yard this week due to some continuing issues.

“There was a nice number of lambs, which displayed scald and lameness. Although we had them done earlier in the month, we brought them in earlier in the week again and gave them another run through the footbaths.”

Shaun will be starting to draft lambs for slaughter from next week onwards for the first time in a couple of weeks.

“These will be all ram lambs, from about 44kg. The rams are now up to half a kilo a head per day as they seemed to be going a bit hard in themselves with the dry weather.”

Pedigree sheep sales

With pedigree sheep sales starting to take place right across the country, eyes at Tullamore are now looking towards their ram needs.

Shaun says they currently have two Texel and a Charollais but will have to purchase another one of each.

Grass

Grass growth remained strong again this week, with growth at 66kg DM/ha while demand sits at 48kg DM/ha.

"Overall farm cover is 737kg DM, so surplus will be cut in the next few days. We’ve got a lot of rain now and could do with the fine weather as we’ll be cutting the second cut in the next two weeks. There are 42 acres to cut and it’s up to 3,500kg DM so far.”