The grazing season has been going very well so far this year and stock are thriving well. I applied fertilizer to most of the grazing area last week. Paddocks received between half a bag and one bag of 27.5.5 per acre depending on grass availability.

The spring-calving cows have roughly 21 grazing days ahead, but with growth rates likely to drop off over the next month, I figured I was better to start building grass availability now. The response to nitrogen should be very good at the moment.

We have been topping after most grazings since the start of June, which has left excellent grass quality.The objective here is to cut any of the rejected areas around dung pats or seed heads down to the same level as the grazed areas. If I didn’t top the dung pats they would have a much heavier cover the next time around which would be of a lower quality and animal performance would suffer. We will probably keep topping until the end of this month when grass and weeds stop trying to produce seeds. The proof of the grass quality is in cattle weight gain.

Bulls born last August and September were weighed last week and have gained 1.42kg per day since being weighed in May. They are an average weight of 398kg, so I would expect them to be over 450kg at housing in early September. These will be finished by the end of December under 16 months after a feeding period of approximately 100 days. Some of the bales taken from the silage ground in May should be of a very high quality and I will try to incorporate as much of this into the finishing diet as possible.

I also weighed last year’s spring-born steers which were not sold at the end of May. These are all Aberdeen Angus and Hereford bred steers, some of which are twins out of first-calving heifers, which I intend finishing. These have gained 0.98kg per day since last weighing and are averaging 448kg.

We haven’t taken out any paddocks for bales over the past month but did manage to get a couple of fields closed up for reseeding. Conditions for reseeding here in Tyrone were ideal, with rainfall coming just as it was needed. Grass is now well established and I will get a post-emergence, clover-safe weed spray over the next two to three weeks. Experience has shown me that the timing of the post-emergence sprays is very important. In years where this was left until the following spring, weeds were much more difficult to control. In the past, I have tried the min till method of reseeding with mixed results.

In my experience, the soil on this farm needs to be loosened to help drainage, root development and attain maximum growth from reseeds. I have found ploughing the most effective way of achieving this. I also have the equipment for ploughing and harrowing, so the process of completing a full reseed is just as cheap as hiring a contractor for sub soiling and drilling grass seed.

The bull was taken out from the spring-calving cows on 9 July, which should leave calving finished up by mid-April 2015. After completing AI training this spring, I inseminated spring-calving cows and replacement heifers myself, to natural heats for the first month of breeding. The stock bull was then put out. This went well and I ended up inseminating over 75% of the cows and heifers.

After making improvements to grassland management and herd fertility, I want to improve cattle quality, which will be a long process. I see AI as the best way of doing this. Cows will be scanned next month and I will see what conception rates are like.

Next year I intend to inseminate for a much longer period, with the long term goal of mitigating the need for a stock bull. We normally calve during February and March, but I want to compare February calves with April ones to see if it justifies extra feeding for cows calved in February until they can be turned out.

The autumn cows are due to start calving from 1 August. Most have a condition score of 3.0 except for two which calved for the first time last August. I have now dosed for worms and rumen fluke as dung samples showed the presence of both.