Billy Gilmore

Co Galway

The breeding season has come to a close having started on 29 October last. The last cows were inseminated with AI on 2 January. Autumn-calving cows are being fed first-cut pit silage with no supplementation. I plan to scan them in early February to identify empty cows.

I have started weaning the older calves and they are getting 1.5kg per day of a home mix consisting of barley, pulp, soya and minerals. I have increased the feeding rate prior to weaning.

It will be gradually reduced once the calves go to grass. The calves will be weighed within the next fortnight in order to monitor their performance.

The intended target date to turn out the calves is early February, weather permitting. When weather conditions improve I intend to spread slurry in advance of the ewes and lambs grazing in March.

There is limited grazing ground beside the yard and I have to save this for ewes lambing. The ewes are still grazing and will be housed just before lambing.

The ewes were scanned a fortnight ago. By scanning the ewes, this allows me to feed the required concentrates based on the results. Hence, ewes with singles are not over-fed, leading to difficult lambing, and ewes with triplets can be fed accordingly.

Faecal sample results taken just before Christmas came back negative for both liver and rumen fluke. This shows that my dosing programme worked successfully.

I took soil samples and am awaiting the results to see how soil fertility has improved on the farm. I will plan my fertilizer applications based on these results.

Niall Patterson

Co Leitrim

I am very happy with how calving has gone on the farm so far. The cows are in excellent body condition at calving and, to date, very few cows have needed any assistance.

Silage is being fed on a restricted basis to cows before calving, as I feel they are getting too heavy. They are being fed a pre-calving mineral for six weeks before calving.

After calving, cows are fed 2kg of concentrate with ad-lib pit silage. The ration is comprised of maize, wheat, distillers, maize gluten and soya hulls with a crude protein of 16%.

The silage analysis came back with 65 DMD and a protein level of 13.4%, which was a little disappointing. The weanling heifers are currently being fed ad-lib silage and 2kg of the same concentrate.

Heifers not being retained for breeding will be sold in the coming weeks, along with the remaining weanling bulls. The weanling bulls are being fed 3.5kg of ration and ad-lib silage.

I plan to have the majority of cows and all the replacement heifers in-calf before turnout. We identified an iodine and selenium deficiency on the farm through blood-sampling some of the stock and all cows will be treated for this before breeding starts by using boluses.

Land type is a major factor hindering me getting stock out early. Hence, my turnout date is usually late April. This results in increased housing costs.

However, depending on weather and soil conditions, I will try to get lighter stock out at the end of March. We housed half the sheep flock at the beginning of January and all will be housed at the weekend due to poor ground conditions.

The ewes were scanned last week and the results are promising for a good lamb crop.

The flock of ewes has been beneficial to increasing stocking rate and output and utilise grass early on this heavy soil.