We are getting some extremely heavy rain this week in Kilkenny, which will change ground conditions very quickly for the cows.

We still have a high cover of grass on the farm to graze after the exceptional autumn growth, so we will try to stick to the grazing plan as much as possible by using second gaps and maybe moving to some dry ground for a few days, but things are going to get very sticky no matter what we do.

The heavy grass covers on the farm at the moment are welcome from a feed point of view, but also mean an extra trek for the herd in and out through the gaps in the field, which puts everything under a bit more pressure. We have good options in some paddocks for minimising damage, so we will just have to do the best we can over the coming days.

Long journey

We have a small portion of the herd dried off now, including a few cull cows. This should help a bit to reduce traffic and some more will be dried off over the coming weeks.

We will also run a second herd of cows that are struggling with long walks in a paddock near the yard for the rest of the season. These cows will be milked once-a-day, to take some of the pressure off them, as they close in on the dry period before they get a good rest for the winter.

It’s difficult to find the balance right between the high covers, the wet weather and trying to get the residual right for closing up paddocks for the winter.

All we can do is our best and keep cows fed as well as possible through the worst of the wet days. We are still on grass and concentrates only and will leave silage out of the diet for another couple of weeks at least.

Hopefully, the price holds up well for the next few weeks and we can have a hard look at everything before the winter

The cows are moving very slowly now on the way in and out of the grazing paddocks and as this week’s paddocks are around 2km from the parlour, it’s a very early start to get them to the yard in time for morning milking. We try to keep them near home during the day and do the long walk in the evening when we are grazing these paddocks, which helps a bit.

When we get those out of the way, we will thankfully be back to a shorter commute for the rest of the grazing season.

Some of the cull cows will be going for sale over the next few days and this will also help to reduce the pressure a bit more.

The first batch went to the factory last week and averaged very close to the price of an average in-calf heifer. Hopefully, the price holds up well for the next few weeks and we can have a hard look at everything before the winter and be very selective about what we are bringing through to next season.

Tirlán

We’ve had a big problem with our new co-op, Tirlán, this month, with many milk statements sent to the wrong suppliers. It’s obviously not the best start to the new relationship and maybe the most concerning part of the story was the delay in getting a clear message out to suppliers as to what the issue was and what the plan was to minimise the problem.

It’s our co-op now, so it’s time to move on from the old smoke and mirrors attitude of keeping suppliers in the dark.

A quick text outlining the problem and asking suppliers in the interest of confidentiality to refrain from opening the envelopes, could have saved a lot of heartache.

The people at the top table are advocating for loyalty and team spirit from the suppliers, but this is a two-way street. Anyone can make a mistake and if it’s our co-op, it’s our mistake – if we are informed properly, we can help to fix it.