The silage season has crept up on us again with serious growth over the last few weeks driving crops toward maturity. We made the decision last week to go in early and try to make good-quality dry silage.

There was the option to leave grass grow a bit more through the peak growing period and harvest a heavier cut next week or the week after, but when the weather was there and the grass quality was excellent, it was hard to leave the grass standing in the field.

The silage in the pit should now test over 70% DMD and up around 30% DM. It will be excellent feed for milking cows, in-calf heifers and the younger animals on the farm. We can add some straw to it for any mature dry cows carrying too much condition. The re-growths should come back quicker after the early cut and give us the option of grazing the aftergrass or taking a second cut if high growth rates continue.

The next job is to try to get some slurry out on the silage ground before it grows too much. We have 80 acres cleared in total and with the re-growths coming back quickly, we will have to move fast to get the ground covered.

We will start with the lighter cuts and move towards where the cuts are heavier, and regrowth will be slower.

Meanwhile, the breeding season is progressing well. We are still waiting on a couple of late calvers to come bulling but the rest of the herd has been bred off strong heats and seem to be holding well to first service so far.

We have been using some straws from stock bulls for the last three week. They were collected a few years ago and are slightly more concentrated than the ones from artificial insemination (AI) stations. They are also cheaper so we can put them in if there’s any doubt that a cow is bulling. We have six weeks of AI done now so the bulls will go out at the weekend.

The high growth rates have resulted in a few paddocks getting a bit strong ahead of the cows so we’ve taken the opportunity to mow these and put them in the pit with the main silage crop. We are also topping most of the grazing paddocks at the moment. We are topping with the mower before the last few hours of grazing to give the cows a chance to pick up the toppings.

Protein

The protein figures around the country seem to be high right across the board this spring. We are running 0.20% ahead of this time last year at 3.59% protein. If we can keep the grass quality right over the next few months we will have a record level of protein for the year. All the more reason to top and keep swards under control.

We will dose the cows with Eprizero this week and give them an IBR vaccine to keep them healthy for the rest of the grazing season. We vaccinate twice a year for IBR in December and June. Keeping this vaccination up to date is as much about keeping this disease out of the herd as controling clinical signs of the disease.

Any spare time over the next few weeks will be spent preparing for our open day on 19 June. We have our last milk recording and herd classification done. These details will go into the herd catalogue on the day.

It’s now a matter of ticking boxes over the next three weeks and getting various jobs out of the way.