Spring barley sown on Tullamore Farm

It has been another busy week on the farm with more ewes lambing, cows calving and 11 acres of spring barley sown.

Eleven acres of spring barley are being incorporated into a reseeding programme with poorer performing paddocks being identified and earmarked for reseeding.

The aim is to return these paddocks back to grass after harvest. The designated area was ploughed, tilled and then sown using a one-pass planter. The seed was sown at a rate of 170kg per hectare. Prior to sowing three bags of 0-7-30 and one bag of CAN / acre where spread on the seed bed. The crop was then rolled in using a light ‘ring roller’ to firm up the seed without compacting the soil.

Grass cover

Due to a cold breeze and little rain, it is leading to a lower level of growth than farm manager Shaun Diver would expect at this time of year.

There is currently a cover of 620kg of dry matter per hectare on the farm. The current growth is 18kg of dry matter per hectare per day and the farms current requirement is 16kg of dry matter per hectare per day. Hopefully, with a bit of rain in the next week, grass growth will improve.

The good weather has allowed ewes and lambs to get out to grass within 24 hours after lambing

There are currently 40 cows and calves now out at grass. The remaining cows that are housed all received a pre-breeding bolus and a magnesium bolus ahead of turnout once grass growth improves.

This coming week breeding heifers will be started on an eight day synchronisation programme with a targeted AI date of 15 April.

Lambing

There are now just under 50 ewes left to lamb, six of these are mature ewes and the remainder are yearling hoggets.

Ten yearling hoggets have lambed so far, with no problems to report. The good weather has allowed ewes and lambs to get out to grass within 24 hours after lambing. This has reduced pressure on housing and labour requirements. Ewes are being supplemented at grass with 0.5kg/head/day of 18% ewe ration.

Despite ewes being on good grass, supplementation allows for ease of herding and reduce the risks of grass tetany in the first two weeks after lambing.

High magnesium buckets are available to ewes at grass also. One ewe was lost to a suspected case of grass tetany this week, despite the aforementioned precautionary measures being implemented, the ewe was brought to the regional vet lab for a post mortem with results to follow in next weeks update.

Read next week’s update for a full break down on how the mature ewe flock performed at lambing and breakdown of the synchronisation process used on the heifers.