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Dry grazing conditions are making management that bit easier at this time of the year.
The hope is that May won’t be a complete washout for breeding but all farmers can do is take it as it comes.
Grazing the second round commenced at the start of the week (8 April), but there are still two faraway paddocks not grazed that effectively were part of the first round.
A decision on what to do with them will be taken early next week. The thinking now is they will be cut out for bales.
Grazing
While grazing conditions are good, growth rate is that little bit slow given the slightly colder and windy weather.
The last growth rate recorded was 32kg/day while demand is 47kg/day so it’s that tricky week on the edge between first and the second round.
Farm cover is down to 711kg from 867kg in the week with those two paddocks out of the equation.
The second round starting covers are in or around the 1,200kg pre grazing mark. There are seven or eight paddocks in or around this cover.
Condition
The herd was condition-scored during the week. Twenty cows were identified as being at condition 2.75 or below. The objective is to identify any cows that need a small bit more attention now in advance of start of breeding.
In the past, we have found once-a-day milking for a small number of cows a few weeks in advance of breeding can work wonders.
Every farmer should run the cows through the crush, throw a score on them and take action now. About 100 first-, second-, third- and fourth-calvers will take part in a sexed semen trial. They will be scanned and condition-scored in advance of trial that starts in late April.
There are 35 cows still to calve which will struggle to stay in the herd with start of breeding around the corner.
About 80% calved in the first six weeks of calving. The cows are still on 3kg of meal. The last load of bulk nuts were GAIN Prime Graze (2.5kg) and they retail at €275/t delivered.
The cows are yielding about 2.1kg of milk solids per day, with the last quality results showing 4.3% fat and 3.6% protein with SCC 181,000 cells/ml, and TBC 12.
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