The trembling cow in the bulling pen

After a heavy Saturday night, this author was trembly and feeble carrying out Sunday's early morning heat detection.

Strangely, I wasn't the only one.

As we split the bulling cows in the yard, I noticed one jump with fright when the gate bolt snapped shut. She seemed quite uncomfortable in her surroundings and her muscles were randomly twitching.

Grass tentany, it seemed, was rearing its ugly head yet again on the farm. It was only our second case in living memory, the first coming last autumn.

The plot thickens

Two mag buckets are left with each group of cows and calves, but this lady obviously wasn't partial to a lick.

The plot thickens – we soon realised that this was the same beast who'd been struck down with it last autumn. A predisposition to the ailment was obvious, but our vet pointed out that the leafy spring grass was giving her the runs and her gut wasn't able to absorb sufficient magnesium.

Thankfully our interventions came early enough to save her, but I fear that this cow may now join our culling list in the back-end. It's a shame – she's a four star Simmental sired by the great HKG.

There has been an explosion of bulling activity on the farm, for which we are relieved. The wet spring seems to have had minimal effects on fertility and to date, only one cow has slipped past her "365-day interval" bulling date. We're 15 days into breeding and 20 animals have been bred. The aim is to serve one per day.

Impressive Newford

Though its early days and submission does not equal conception, breeding performance is well ahead of last year.

Our AI submission rate pales into insignificance compared to that of the impressive Newford Suckler Herd. In Athenry, 77 animals have been bred in 25 days. The trip west for its open day during the week was extremely rewarding.

Here is a farm that is making full use of its assets, has defined targets and is focused solely on the bottom line. Those pulling the strings are certainly not breeding for the boat, which seems to irk many.

However, when a farm is producing a ton of carcase weight per hectare at a net margin of €500 (per hectare), Newford's targets, you stand up and take note.