In farming you get used to years of doing the same work at a certain month, to the point where it becomes routine. Well 2018 is bucking that trend. Normally at this time of year the whole farm is available for grazing and it’s a straightforward case of working to housing and building grass covers from early September.

It’s not the case at the moment as there’s ground closed off for silage so the grazing plan is altered because of this. The few acres cut this week have replaced what was fed so far and thankfully a few more with it. I don’t think I’ve ever counted up in my diary how many bales I have as often as this year. Hopefully the rest of the silage should come good in the next fortnight.

It will be a case of reassessing the situation after that and seeing what can be done to reduce the fodder deficit.

The results of scanning two weeks ago provided one solution. We’d budget for about five empties in total but we had more than that. There were four heifers and four first-calvers not in-calf. The challenging spring was no help to them but it could be worse. They have thrived throughout the year and the calves on the first-calvers are in good shape.

The plan was to have a short breeding season with the heifers evolved due to weather and they ended up running with a bull for 11 weeks. It was seven weeks for all the cows with those from third-calvers up getting three weeks of AI and four with the bull. Some 68% held to the single-serve AI. The two empties had been in a group babysitting the bull the entire time but spring and summer obviously proved too much for them.

The empty heifers have gone to the finishing group and to take pressure off grass, will be housed and started on feed. Given there is grass held up for silage I’m toying with a similar option for the culls.

While grass growth has been very solid of late with moisture most days and temperatures in the high teens, it’s unlikely those conditions will last for too much longer.

The results would have usually disappointed me but I was relieved given the way the year has been. Those empties mean a few tonnes less to feed later this winter.

There is a good crop of heifer calves waiting to slot in next year in their stead so after holding back any with feet or temperament issues we’ll continue to let nature decide who stays. It’s very much a no-frills breeding policy but it’s very straightforward.

Worms

A dung sample was taken from each of the in-calf heifers and tested for the presence of worms. Five came back with a reading of zero, while the rest varied between 100 and 400 EPG. They won’t receive any worm treatment for a while yet.

The aim is to make this an annual practice and hopefully it will give a guideline as to what animals within the same group have a higher worm resistance and hopefully reduce the need to worm in future.

Given the dry summer, only 25% of calves have received worm treatment to date. They will be monitored for any signs of worms over the next few weeks but the plan would be to hold off the rest until closer to weaning. Using faecal egg counts have proved to be a labour saver especially on the outfarm.