Winter has arrived with a bang over the last week, with wind, rain and a drop in temperatures making grazing stock very unsettled on the farm. We changed our plan slightly and brought the in-calf heifers into the sheds before the worst of it, which should mean that we have enough grass left to keep the weanlings out for another month or so.

We also split up the weanlings into smaller groups and spread them out over more ground to help to keep them a bit more content.

Empty culls will go first and some selective culling will be done then with older cows, low production, high cell counts and lameness at the top of the list to go

With the wet weather hitting hard, we also dried off the first batch of cows for the winter. Some lame cows were pulled out, as well as some first calvers and a few empty cows. We will work on getting the numbers on farm down to the minimum for the winter over the next few weeks.

Empty culls will go first and some selective culling will be done then with older cows, low production, high cell counts and lameness at the top of the list to go.

The rest of the milking herd have gone to once-a-day milking for the rest of the season and condition score is excellent so far. They are milked in the morning and fed silage for two hours after milking before heading back to the paddock for their grass allocation. Hopefully, we can keep the milkers out grazing for another month or so, with numbers dropping every week as we dry off a few more cows.

The whole herd will be dry before Christmas in any case, so we are very much winding down from here on in

Yield will drop rapidly from now on with once-a-day milking and with most of the herd in-calf early enough, the biggest problem will be to watch lactose levels for the next few weeks. Cell count is under control so far, so it shouldn’t be too much of a factor for drying off cows. The whole herd will be dry before Christmas in any case, so we are very much winding down from here on in.

We are feeding as much baled silage as possible to begin with, to use it up before the busy spring period. We will feed these off before Christmas and change to pit silage through January and for calving. Dry cows will get a bale of straw through the silage, with milkers on grass silage only. We will hold the maize silage for the spring.

Bales are fine in small doses but create a lot of extra work around the yard

We had to make extra baled silage this year as we had a silage pit out of action with builders using it for access to extend another pit. We should have enough capacity in the pits now to keep bales to a minimum over the next few years. Bales are fine in small doses but create a lot of extra work around the yard.

Winter routine

We are almost finished the building project, so hopefully the yard can return to normal before the full winter routine starts. We have the last few cubicles to install before the last of the cows come in for the winter and we also have to put the finishing touches to a calf shed extension.

It was great to see progress being made around the yard

The parlour is finished now, with the last piece of the jigsaw, the drafting gate, added this week.

It was great to see progress being made around the yard but there were up to a dozen vans in the yard at times during the summer and plenty of small decisions to be made every day. There’s always plenty of stress around at those times and small issues to be dealt with. It will be a pleasure to get back into a normal routine as soon as possible.