Autumn plans disrupted as Greenfield herd locked up

Normally by mid-October the Greenfield herd in Kilkenny is reduced in number as any culls and cows not in calf get shown the gate early to help reduce the demand for autumn feed.

However, an unexpected letter arrived this week, detailing the fact that one cow had been diagnosed inconclusive for TB in the annual test, so the herd is locked up.

The Department of Agriculture advice is that the particular inconclusive cow must go straight to the factory and tissue samples will be cultured. The Department vet suggests the results of the culture test won’t be known for another week or 10 days.

The farm cover this week was 1,200kg DM/ha, which is as high as it will go

Effectively it means the herd is locked up to the end of November, and maybe longer, depending on results.

Hopefully, it will be possible to get a permit to allow the empty cows go to the factory or a TB feedlot.

Farm cover

The herd have started the last round of grazing on 1 October. The plan is to graze 70% of the total area (120ha) in October.

This essentially means there is 84ha to graze in October, which breaks down to around 20ha per week or 3ha per day in round figures.

Depending on the cover in each paddock, this will vary some bit from day to day.

The key now for October is to keep a track on this each week and potentially supplement depending on weather, grazing conditions, etc.

At the moment the herd is getting grass plus 3kg per cow per day and, depending on the farm cover next week, this may or may not continue.

Growth for the last week was 45kg/day. The farm cover this week was 1,200kg DM/ha, which is as high as it will go. Next week it will start slipping down.

The last test result was 5.3% fat, 4.19% protein, 4.72% lactose and 143,000 cells/ml.

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