The last few weeks have been exceptionally dry in this part of the world.

Grazing conditions are excellent, roadways are dry and clean and grass has been growing steadily all month. We have skipped over a few paddocks this week. They will be left to come in with the first cut. We felt that there was too much nitrogen out to wrap them so early in the season. We will wrap any more surpluses that we hit from next week on.

We started breeding the cows last Thursday to give an expected calving date around the end of January. We will probably see the first of the calves arrive by the 25th and get busy for the first week of February.

We tail-painted all the cows the week before breeding and cows are drafted out for AI on the way into the parlour every morning. This means they are bred and back into the collecting yard for milking quickly with the minimum of stress.

The first three weeks of heat detection will be easy enough, with big numbers bulling every day and cows well marked. We will probably have to do a bit more observation in the fields for the second three weeks to keep accuracy up. The bulls went out with the heifers this week too.

Again we feel that a good-quality, fertility-tested stock bull will do the whole job cost effectively in comparison with trying to AI breed these heifers.

Cows are continuing to produce close to 30 litres of milk and 2.2kg of solids with 3kg of meal being fed in the parlour.

We are feeding a 14% high energy, high mineral content nut to try to keep everything right for the breeding season. We will continue with this level of feeding right through to the end of June when the bulls will be pulled out. The target is to have less than 5% of the herd empty by then. AI will be used for the first six weeks, with the bulls working for the last few weeks.

There is one cow left to calve at this stage. She is well past her time now and should do the business any day. The last few to calve thankfully produced mostly bull calves, which are easier to deal with this late in the season. This cow will be on her eighth lactation and although time is against her, she will probably milk close to 40 litres at peak . She will be culled at the end of the year if she doesn’t pull back a couple of weeks on calving date but she won’t owe anyone anything by then.

On a more serious note, we lost a friend here last week for whom life got too much.

I suppose we don’t think about mental health enough until it affects us as closely as this. It’s as serious a health problem as heart disease, cancer or alcoholism but usually much more difficult to diagnose. The treatment isn’t too simple either.

This death wasn’t farming related but we are in a high-risk sector so it’s important to be aware of the risks. Farms can be intense enough places sometimes with farm family closeness often adding to these pressures. It’s imperative to switch off. Most importantly, talk to someone and look for help if things are getting too much.