Hard spring

Spring 2016 will be remembered for exceptional rainfall, difficult grazing and lower than normal growth rates. The last week has been particularly difficult, as people thought the worst of the weather was over. Many farmers had to fully house their herds for the first time this spring. Land was just saturated. It is demoralising to see cows coming into the parlour looking slack in milk, at a time when they should be bursting with milk. But that’s what the weather does and we can only deal with what we get. Remind yourself and staff that everyone is in the same position.

With some of the milk processors expected to announce price cuts over the next week, it will be very easy to become disheartened. If feeling low, have a chat with a discussion group member, neighbour or friend and see how he’s getting on. Make an effort to talk to someone you know, who may be under a bit of pressure. With fewer cows to calve and most of the hard slog over, you need to take more time off, if even just for a few hours on a Sunday. These few weeks in April, before the start of breeding, should be used to re-charge the batteries. Ideally, get away entirely for a weekend.

Bulling cows

Cows bulling are big causes of poaching when land is wet. Three or four cows bulling for a night will wreck a paddock. When on/off grazing and when land is very tender it might be a good idea to pick out the bulling cows and put them elsewhere, either on to a sacrifice paddock or in a straw shed. The same applies to cows in a shed, where bulling cows are at risk of getting injured by slipping or getting pushed over cubicles.

Now is a good time to take stock of calving date on your farm. As calving is getting more and more compact and as stocking rates increase, there is definitely merit in pushing back calving date by a week or more on many farms. The benefits of later calving will be a higher proportion of grazed grass in the diet of lactating cows. Lactation length might decrease, but farmers who have delayed calving date have found that milk solids per cow actually increased, as grass displaced silage in the early lactation diet.

Sub-soiling

At the Dairylink farm walk on Kevin McGrade’s farm in Co Tyrone yesterday, visitors to the farm saw at first hand the difference between fields that were sub-soiled versus those that weren’t. Sub-soiled fields were greener, drier and looked to be growing more than those that weren’t sub-soiled. As Kevin said, it’s all down to the machine and the soil type. Studies in the north and south have failed to prove a consistent benefit of sub-soiling across multiple soil types with various machines. So what works in one soil type might not work as well in another soil type. Kevin says it reduces compaction, aids drainage and aerates the soil. He gets a contractor to do his work and it costs about £25/acre (€31/acre).