I am just back from a weekend break on the ski slopes of Austria. It was great to get away from the farm for a few days, but like any farmer I was planning the ‘to-do’ list before I came home.

With the calving season nearly upon us, top of the list is to ensure the calving unit is clean, disinfected and freshly straw bedded. I will also check that there is plenty of iodine and make sure the calving ropes and jack are at the ready should they be needed.

I know the calving camera is working fine, as I could not help checking it on my phone while I was away. It was a little unsettling to hear that a heifer was moved to the calving unit over the weekend for observation but thankfully she did not calve, just yet anyway.

Weights

One of the jobs that I am looking forward to is weighing the weanling heifers. They are on 2kgs of meal and ad-lib silage. While they look great, weighing is still essential.

The plan is to let the lightest one-third of them to grass this week, while the remainder will be kept inside for another few weeks and have their meal reduced to zero. Depending on their weight, I may keep the lighter ones that are going to grass, fed with a little meal too.

I will also introduce the in-calf heifers to the milking parlour this week. They will have a chance to stand in the parlour and familiarise themselves with their new surroundings, making it a less stressful experience for both man and beast when they are milked for the first time after calving.

EBI

This exercise is especially important this year, as almost half of the herd are calving as heifers. It is a very high proportion, but necessary as I am expanding the herd by 20% while also aiming to increase the overall herd EBI. They are all home bred heifers out of high EBI AI sires.

Speaking of which, this is the week that I usually start looking at AI sires for the upcoming breeding season in April. I will concentrate my efforts on the ICBF active list and use the sire selection tool on their website, where you can manually select traits. I will again be selecting for +30kg of solids and good fertility index while keeping an eye on health and maintenance figures.

Tom Dinneen is a dairy farmer in Ballynoe, east Cork. Follow him on Twitter.