This winter is like some kind of Game of Thrones never-ending winter, a show that I have never seen to the astonishment of many, but I understand that winter can last somewhat longer than in reality.

It’s really testing shed capacity, with the suckler cows and their autumn-born calves still remaining in sheds. They haven’t yet embarked on their journey to the outfarm for their summer grazing.

The dairy cows are in the midst of calving and would normally have roughly 25% grazed by now, which would be excellent for north Longford land. To date, there is a sum total of 0% grazed and no chemical nitrogen applied.

Welfare

Calf and cow welfare is the first priority when the calves start dropping this spring. It always is and will always be.

It doesn’t matter whether bull or heifer, dairy- or beef-sired. Welfare of all animals on the farm comes ahead of profit or lack thereof.

If we choose to keep cows, put them in-calf, we must look after each and every calf in the same careful way.

GLAS

This year will be our final year in GLAS and I have found the scheme relatively straightforward in term of the actions required.

It would make sense if the Department of Agriculture extended GLAS 1 and 2 out to the end of 2021 and concluded all three tranches together.

The next two years could be used to plan and launch a new environmental scheme commencing in 2022.

There are, no doubt, some aspects of GLAS that require some tweaking and possibly introducing some new aspects.

An environmental action I would like to see introduced is a measure to protect and encourage pollinators, such as a wildflower area, and some kind of incentive to reduce plastic use on farms such as switching to bulk fertiliser and concentrate.

However, these are out of my control and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Bulls

The final batch of bulls are nearly fit to go to the factory. These are dairy-bred Friesian bulls and to say trying to put them into weight and bump them up the grid is difficult is an understatement, particularly when following on from a batch of continental suckler-bred bulls.

In order to minimise the number of Friesian bulls on the farm, we will AI with sexed semen for the first three weeks of this coming breeding season and switch to conventional AI for the next three weeks.

Hopefully, the weather will have warmed up somewhat by the time breeding comes around!

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