After walking into the milking herd today, you would question how good the overall in-calf rate will be in Kilkenny this year. Farm manager Eoin Finneran had two cows pulled out for AI in the yard and there were three more cows in the paddock getting more attention than you would like from the vasectomised bulls.

These three cows in the paddock were either going off heat or coming in heat. Remember the vasectomised bulls are normally a day early on picking cows up coming in heat.

You could forgive anybody that walked into the field coming to the assumption that there could be over 50 cows not in calf in the herd at the end of July. The truth is, we don't rightly know yet how many cows are not in calf and won't know for another four to five weeks.

Then the herd will be scanned and cows not in calf will be organised for sale. We expect that there will be less than 10% not in calf, similar to other years, but we must await the scanning results.

We identify the cows not in calf early and sell them as a release valve on stocking rate, to allow us build autumn grass cover

Breeding these cows is continuing at the moment, but whether they will be retained is another question. Cows bred now are due in early May next year. The 2018 breeding season will be up and going by then, and the chances of those cows staying in the system will be very small.

Every year in Kilkenny we identify the cows not in calf early (August/September) and use these (sell them) as a release valve on stocking rate, to allow us build autumn grass cover.

Yield just under 20l

In terms of milk yield, the herd is still milking 19-20 litres and the test results for the last collection were 4.50% fat and 3.98% protein (1.65kg MS/cow). The SCC was 138,000, with a lactose percentage of 4.75%. That yield is produced on grazed grass only, with about 130kg of meal fed per cow/year to date.

The mix of rain and sun is suiting grass growth on the Kilkenny farm at the moment, despite the fact that the last few paddocks of silage are being cut today. Average cover per cow is about 180kg. The last growth rate recorded was 64kg/day on average, which is back on the previous couple of weeks as nitrogen wasn't spread in time.

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More report from the Greenfield demonstration farm