The weather is up at last this week, with a definite feeling of spring in the air.

We have closed up the silage pit for the moment and hopefully the strip wires can be put in the shed for a few months and we can let the handbrake off on grazing for a while at least.

The cows were in for a few days over the last fortnight but ground conditions, thankfully, turned very quickly with the longer days from the middle of the month onwards.

We will continue to feed 4kg of meal at grass for the rest of March and see where grass growth and availability takes us after that.

Calving is nearly wrapped up now with less than 30 cows left to calve.

We will bring some of the older girls back into the calving box as they get closer to their time to keep an eye on them

We will put these out in a paddock with a bale of hay this week and leave out some buckets of dry-cow mineral with them to help keep them right.

Hopefully they won’t cause too many problems. We will bring some of the older girls back into the calving box as they get closer to their time to keep an eye on them.

The cost of this round of fertiliser is eye-watering, but we can’t skimp too much on fertiliser at this time of year

We spread some more slurry on silage ground this week and got another round of fertiliser out on the whole farm, including the first-cut silage application.

The cost of this round of fertiliser is eye-watering, but we can’t skimp too much on fertiliser at this time of year.

This is the critical time to grow grass, to fill silage clamps and to put aside as much feed as possible for next winter. We will probably cut back on fertiliser application rates a bit more after June, but the critical growth months of April, May and June have to be supported.

We have a nice bit of silage left over at this stage after what looks like a short winter.

If we can add to this over the next few months, we should be in a good position to look at reducing fertiliser rates slightly for the second half of the year.

Feed looks like it will get very dear over the next few months so we can’t feed more concentrates to reduce demand for grass, to create a surplus for cutting, it will have to be done through lifting growth rates with fertiliser despite the painful cost.

Breeding

We will start to concentrate more on the breeding season from this week onwards.

We haven’t done any pre-breeding scanning for the last number of years, but with our automatic heat detection system working away all the time, we might scan the problem cows that haven’t shown a heat yet after calving.

The priority this season is to get the cows in-calf as quickly as possible

We might be able to progress these cows a bit quicker towards a successful outcome if we are a bit more proactive with them early in the season.

The priority this season is to get the cows in-calf as quickly as possible. We will reduce the amount of sexed semen used and just focus on getting everything as compact as possible for calving next year.

We will also switch across to beef straws very early in the season. We had some nice Speckle Park calves on the ground this spring, so we will use them again next season.

Obviously, Angus calves are always in demand but quality can be hit and miss. We find Aubracs work well too, leaving nicely muscled calves.

The premium for these calves over Angus or Hereford is often hard got in the yard and can be hit and miss in the mart too

There’s a trade-off with the flashier beef breeds with the calving ease and gestation length more at risk. It’s hard to know if the risk is worth it sometimes. The premium for these calves over Angus or Hereford is often hard got in the yard and can be hit and miss in the mart too.

Dairy farmers are milk producers first and beef producers second, but there’s a certain amount of satisfaction to be got from turning out a good-quality beef calf with a good value from whichever breed for neighbours to rear to profitable beef cattle.