Calving is progressing well on Tullamore Farm. A further nine cows have calved this week, to bring the total number to 37, with 38 live calves on the ground. There has been no major assistance given to any of the nine, with more of the mature cows now starting to calve down as well.

Ideally, we would like to turn out some of our earlier-calving cows, but heavy rain over the last few days has left ground untrafficable. We are now in our third spring of the beef shed built in summer 2022, and without it we would struggle with weather conditions like this.

Cows and calves are being turned out to loose-bedded pens for the first week, before moving up to the slatted shed, where calves are shut in to the 25ft lie back area that has been bedded with a deep layer of straw. Calves are suckled twice daily, with the mindset being that this should help bring cows back in to heat quicker.

If the weather did improve, we would be hoping to get some of these cows or some yearling heifers out, but for the minute we are okay as far as accommodation goes.

The lighter bulls from last year’s calf crop remain on-farm, with a decision to be made on what to do with these shortly. Our options are to finish as under 16-month bull beef, sell live as they are now or squeeze and finish off grass; something the farm hasn’t done before. We may do one, or a combination of two of the above.

Sheep

Ewes and in lamb hoggets received their Heptavac-P booster this week, ahead of lambing. We have been incrementally rising the level of concentrates to ewes carrying multiple lambs, with twin-bearing ewes now receiving 500g/head/day, while triplet ewes are on 750g/head/day. Ewes also have access to a molasses feeder and are being fed high DMD silage. The Easycare ewes and crossbred hoggets remain at grass, but will be brought in to the shed shortly.

Two ewes died on farm this week, with both sheep sent to the laboratory for post-mortem examination. We will include the results in next week’s update.

Fencing

When not in the calving shed, we are taking time to do some fencing repairs on-farm. Storm Éowyn caused some mature trees to fall down, with fences damaged as a result. We are also installing some additional straining posts as required around bends and corners, ahead of stock being turned out.