Programme farms are in the middle of the breeding season. Where AI is being used, farmers have reported that it has been particularly difficult to identify cows and heifers in heat. However, this does seem to be improving as the weather has got warmer. Few repeats are being reported among cows served either by AI or stock bulls, and farmers are hopeful of high conception rates.
Some farmers are using heat detection aids, such as Kamar patches, to help them to identify heats.
Ink wells in these patches burst when heavy pressure from mounting occurs, causing the patch to turn a bright colour.
Cows and heifers in heat usually show more activity in early morning and late evening. These patches are particularly useful on busy days where timing and duration of heat detection isn’t as good as it should be.
Regular monitoring for repeats is important to identify possible sub-fertility in bulls and allow action to be taken in time.
The last of the programme farms is cutting their silage this week. Overall, yields were very good, especially considering the colder than usual weather in May this year. Weather was a little unsettled when the first farms were cutting. However, the decision was made to press ahead with cutting as delaying would have negatively affected grass quality with increased levels of stem in the grass.
After the breeding season and silage-cutting, the next focus on the programme farms will be reseeding grassland. Most of the farms plan to reseed this year with fields already selected. It is important to have fields selected well in advance as this will have an effect on grass availability, while these fields are out of the grazing platform.
The recent good weather has meant that ground has dried up extremely well in the last couple of weeks.
Cattle on the farm were turned out from early April. Heavy ground in this part of the country makes early spring turnout of stock difficult. Cows and calves had to be rehoused several times throughout May due to the wet conditions.
Current grass growth is good but is leading to higher pre-grazing covers than desired in some paddocks. It is once again becoming increasingly difficult to graze these paddocks down to the desired post-grazing cover of 1,600kg dry matter (DM)/ha. Topping is carried out to maintain grass growth and quality. Where topping was completed in the last rotation, grass quality is much better. A half bag of 23:5:5 per acre is applied to paddocks post-grazing to maintain grass quality.
Calving started in early January and finished at the end of April. A total of 15 heifers and 44 cows calved, with 61 live calves on the ground. Five sets of twins boosted calf numbers.
I experienced considerable calving difficulty this year, which is far from ideal. Being a full-time farmer and being present for calving helped to minimise losses. Fortunately, cows have come back into heat earlier than I had expected. Part-time farmers or farms with less labour available at calving time may not have fared as well as I did. Minimising calving difficulty is a priority for the future, with easier calving bulls selected for use this year.
Calf quality is excellent and, although they have yet to be weighed, calves appear to be growing very well. All calves were tissue-tagged at birth for bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) and all have come back clear.
Breeding
The breeding season started on 28 March, with 57 cows and nine heifers to be served this year. The earliest calving cows were served to either an AI Simmental bull (Curaheen Apostle, Curaheen Dickens or Drumlone Anchor) or an AI Limousin bull (Elite Flag or Navarin). The Charolais stock bull was introduced to these cows on 3 May to serve any repeats.
A group of 28 later-calving cows were synchronised and artificially inseminated on 11 June, as part of an AFBI and AgriSearch synchronisation study. This group of cows was chosen in an effort to pull calving dates forward for these cows and to tighten the overall calving spread on the farm. These cows are in good body condition this year, and I am hopeful that this will help to achieve good conception rates to first service. The synchronisation protocol was as follows:
Day 1: CIDR-inserted and GnRH-administered.Day 7: CIDR-removed and prostaglandin-administered.Cows were then served to fixed-time AI 60 to 72 hours later, with GnRH also administered at AI.Cows were scanned pre-breeding to assess their suitability for the programme. All were deemed good candidates, with the exception of one cow which seemed to have a slight infection. These cows had to be bred to bulls from a specific list supplied by the project co-ordinators. These bulls would not necessarily have been my first choice. From the bulls available, I went with the Charolais bulls Thrunton Nostradamus and Sackville Felix.
A batch of eight heifers on the farm have also been artifically inseminated with the Limousin bull Emslies Galileo. All cows and heifers are being monitored for repeats with few identified to date. My aim is for a 12-week calving season on this farm.
Again, a tighter calving period may be more appropriate for some farmers, but 12 weeks is more suited to our individual situation and housing resources.
Cows and replacement heifers were all vaccinated for BVD and leptospirosis pre-breeding. Replacement heifers and calves are being treated with Cydectin LA pour-on to control worms. Magnesium lick buckets were put with the cows at turnout to prevent grass tetany.
First cut
Silage was cut on 11 June. This ground received 2,500 gallons of slurry, followed by three bags of 23:0:10 plus sulphur. In total, 15 acres of silage ground plus five acres of surplus grass from grazing ground were cut. Quality and yield appeared to be good. I have a large surplus of silage carried over from last year. I don’t plan to take a second cut at this stage, unless grass supply gets ahead of demand.
I also plan to reseed six acres of newly rented ground this year. It will be used for silage in the future. Late heading grass varieties will mainly be used in the reseed.
There are some paddocks which will need to be sprayed for docks in the coming months. They are going to seed at present and it is difficult to have them at the right stage to apply chemical.
Breeding is now progressing well on all farms.Farms continuing to take out excess grass supplies.Topping is continuing on some farms to control future grass quality.Autumn-calving cows are being monitored closely for summer mastitis.
Programme farms are in the middle of the breeding season. Where AI is being used, farmers have reported that it has been particularly difficult to identify cows and heifers in heat. However, this does seem to be improving as the weather has got warmer. Few repeats are being reported among cows served either by AI or stock bulls, and farmers are hopeful of high conception rates.
Some farmers are using heat detection aids, such as Kamar patches, to help them to identify heats.
Ink wells in these patches burst when heavy pressure from mounting occurs, causing the patch to turn a bright colour.
Cows and heifers in heat usually show more activity in early morning and late evening. These patches are particularly useful on busy days where timing and duration of heat detection isn’t as good as it should be.
Regular monitoring for repeats is important to identify possible sub-fertility in bulls and allow action to be taken in time.
The last of the programme farms is cutting their silage this week. Overall, yields were very good, especially considering the colder than usual weather in May this year. Weather was a little unsettled when the first farms were cutting. However, the decision was made to press ahead with cutting as delaying would have negatively affected grass quality with increased levels of stem in the grass.
After the breeding season and silage-cutting, the next focus on the programme farms will be reseeding grassland. Most of the farms plan to reseed this year with fields already selected. It is important to have fields selected well in advance as this will have an effect on grass availability, while these fields are out of the grazing platform.
The recent good weather has meant that ground has dried up extremely well in the last couple of weeks.
Cattle on the farm were turned out from early April. Heavy ground in this part of the country makes early spring turnout of stock difficult. Cows and calves had to be rehoused several times throughout May due to the wet conditions.
Current grass growth is good but is leading to higher pre-grazing covers than desired in some paddocks. It is once again becoming increasingly difficult to graze these paddocks down to the desired post-grazing cover of 1,600kg dry matter (DM)/ha. Topping is carried out to maintain grass growth and quality. Where topping was completed in the last rotation, grass quality is much better. A half bag of 23:5:5 per acre is applied to paddocks post-grazing to maintain grass quality.
Calving started in early January and finished at the end of April. A total of 15 heifers and 44 cows calved, with 61 live calves on the ground. Five sets of twins boosted calf numbers.
I experienced considerable calving difficulty this year, which is far from ideal. Being a full-time farmer and being present for calving helped to minimise losses. Fortunately, cows have come back into heat earlier than I had expected. Part-time farmers or farms with less labour available at calving time may not have fared as well as I did. Minimising calving difficulty is a priority for the future, with easier calving bulls selected for use this year.
Calf quality is excellent and, although they have yet to be weighed, calves appear to be growing very well. All calves were tissue-tagged at birth for bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) and all have come back clear.
Breeding
The breeding season started on 28 March, with 57 cows and nine heifers to be served this year. The earliest calving cows were served to either an AI Simmental bull (Curaheen Apostle, Curaheen Dickens or Drumlone Anchor) or an AI Limousin bull (Elite Flag or Navarin). The Charolais stock bull was introduced to these cows on 3 May to serve any repeats.
A group of 28 later-calving cows were synchronised and artificially inseminated on 11 June, as part of an AFBI and AgriSearch synchronisation study. This group of cows was chosen in an effort to pull calving dates forward for these cows and to tighten the overall calving spread on the farm. These cows are in good body condition this year, and I am hopeful that this will help to achieve good conception rates to first service. The synchronisation protocol was as follows:
Day 1: CIDR-inserted and GnRH-administered.Day 7: CIDR-removed and prostaglandin-administered.Cows were then served to fixed-time AI 60 to 72 hours later, with GnRH also administered at AI.Cows were scanned pre-breeding to assess their suitability for the programme. All were deemed good candidates, with the exception of one cow which seemed to have a slight infection. These cows had to be bred to bulls from a specific list supplied by the project co-ordinators. These bulls would not necessarily have been my first choice. From the bulls available, I went with the Charolais bulls Thrunton Nostradamus and Sackville Felix.
A batch of eight heifers on the farm have also been artifically inseminated with the Limousin bull Emslies Galileo. All cows and heifers are being monitored for repeats with few identified to date. My aim is for a 12-week calving season on this farm.
Again, a tighter calving period may be more appropriate for some farmers, but 12 weeks is more suited to our individual situation and housing resources.
Cows and replacement heifers were all vaccinated for BVD and leptospirosis pre-breeding. Replacement heifers and calves are being treated with Cydectin LA pour-on to control worms. Magnesium lick buckets were put with the cows at turnout to prevent grass tetany.
First cut
Silage was cut on 11 June. This ground received 2,500 gallons of slurry, followed by three bags of 23:0:10 plus sulphur. In total, 15 acres of silage ground plus five acres of surplus grass from grazing ground were cut. Quality and yield appeared to be good. I have a large surplus of silage carried over from last year. I don’t plan to take a second cut at this stage, unless grass supply gets ahead of demand.
I also plan to reseed six acres of newly rented ground this year. It will be used for silage in the future. Late heading grass varieties will mainly be used in the reseed.
There are some paddocks which will need to be sprayed for docks in the coming months. They are going to seed at present and it is difficult to have them at the right stage to apply chemical.
Breeding is now progressing well on all farms.Farms continuing to take out excess grass supplies.Topping is continuing on some farms to control future grass quality.Autumn-calving cows are being monitored closely for summer mastitis. 
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