Charles Clark Bailieborough, Co Cavan

At this stage we have about 55% of the farm grazed and 79% of the herd calved. The last week has been excellent weather-wise, which has meant that cows were out day and night. It makes a massive difference to the workload having them out on grass.

We have probably done well to get as much of the farm grazed as we have, considering how wet it has been for most of March. We got out when we could by grazing the dry part of the farm for two or three hours at a time.

You can’t underestimate the effort this takes in putting up and down wires, but I think it’s worth it in terms of growing more grass and producing higher-quality milk cheaper.

Protein levels are running higher than last year. The last test was 3.29%, whereas this time last year they were 3.05% for the same period.

More grass is a factor, but the cows were getting good-quality baled silage too while they were indoors when weather was wet, so that helped too. These were bales made from surplus grass last May and were 72% DMD.

So far this year, I have about 30 round bales. The cows were also getting some more meal this year.

The other thing that is increasing the workload is going to the outfarm to check and feed cattle. I had intended to sell these last autumn, but prices were poor, so I held on to them. I didn’t have them last winter, so it’s adding about an hour a day to the workload at the moment.

I think I would have been better off selling them. I have a local man coming a few days a week to give a hand, which is a massive help.

New cows

Five heifer calves bought in 2015 have now joined the herd. The five are Jersey-crossbred purchased from a herd in Laois and they join a few more Jersey-crossbred cows of my own. They definitely look smaller than some of my older Holstein cows, but I’m happy with how they are going so far.

The herd was on about 6kg of meal per day when they were on silage full-time, but this dropped back to 4kg and will shortly go on to 2kg per day. All the meal has to be bucketed into the parlour, so it’s a good incentive to reduce feeding rates.

Heifers

The maiden heifers were weighed at Christmas and all bar a few were at target weight then. Those that weren’t on target were given 2kg of meal per day, but I have stopped feeding now in anticipation of turning out to grass.

They haven’t gone out yet, but hopefully they will by next week. They are going to outfarms that is not suitable for cutting. Otherwise, I would be tempted to keep them at home until after they are artificially inseminated.

Last year, I watched them for six days and then used PG on the ones not seen, but only 12 of the 30 held to AI. It was better the year before, so hopefully this year will return to normal.

I have 45 maiden heifers in total. Eleven of these were purchased as calves last year. Most of the purchased heifers are Jersey-crossbred. All of this year’s calves are sired by Jersey-crossbred bulls too, so I’m hoping for a significant rise in milk solids over the next few years.

I have 25 dry cows left to calve. At this stage, calving has slowed down a lot. All the calves coming now are beef calves and the majority of these will be sold, but some will be kept to graze some out-blocks.

The whole farm got 33 units/acre of urea in February and most of the farm has received a second round of PastureSward and urea at a rate of 36 units/acre.

I have a lot of slurry to spread. When the weather was suitable for spreading, we weren’t allowed to spread and then when we could spread it was wet.

The contractors have been here for the past two days spreading some of this slurry.