When it comes to stymied grass growing conditions, I think my preference is for a dry warm drought rather than continuous cold and damp.

That’s based on my experiences of this year anyway.

Two of the three blocks of ground are doing ok but the home ground never got going.

It never got a chance to this spring as it was needed to take pressure off wetter parts of the farm.

In hindsight, I think there was too much asked of it in spring and some paddocks had stock in them much more often than they usually would.

That was the only thing that was done differently to other years in terms of management.

I’ve never taken so little surplus bales off the grazing area here. Most years, there’s eight paddocks on the grazing block and if they’re not all cut, seven of them are.

Some years, we’ve managed to cut some of the other paddocks there for silage too but that was never going to happen this year.

I only managed to get bales from two and that was along with the first cut and the rest ended up being topped instead over the last month.

In order to give it a chance and try and build up covers for later, a decision was made to bring in the cull cows and their calves last weekend.

A few forward heifers that are being finished followed a few days later.

Once the grass cover in the paddocks close to the house recovers, the calves will go back creep grazing.

Build up

If heat and moisture come along together we’ll be laughing, but if they don’t then at least I’ll be comfortable heading deeper into the autumn.

The first calvers are the only group at grass at home for now and they’ve had a rough deal over the last year but have done well with their calves.

I weighed them and the calves when they were passing through the yard and I was happy with where they were at.

They were split into bull and heifer calf groups and any with a dirty backside were dosed for worms.

Outside of the cull group, they will be the first ones weaned and they can do a bit of grazing to put on condition after.

There won’t be any scanning done with those for a while but I took the opportunity to scan the replacement heifers almost two weeks ago.

The bull was with them for 41 days and with the exception of three that were empty, the rest are all due within 30 days of each other.

Two of the three not in calf were pedigree heifers so that was a disappointment, but all in the group were treated the same so bending the rules just because there’s a piece of paper attached won’t help the long-term fertility of the herd.

They will join the cull group shortly.

I have question marks over two more in the group.

One is small while the other was the one least in calf but was the most excitable when it came to being in the yard.

The cow she’s from is on a yellow card too so that won’t work in her favour.

That result is similar to last year’s and I might rejig the process next year and tighten their time with the bull even further.

That’s a long way away yet but it’s something to consider when a review of what could be done better is completed.