In pictures: a year on Tullamore Farm

Sixty-one dairy-cross heifers spent January and February 2018 grazing kale on Tullamore Farm. These heifers were supplemented with silage and allocated a daily feed allowance of kale each day by moving an electric fence.

Anthony Mulligan, our UCD work experience student, spent five months on Tullamore Farm in spring 2018.

The beast from the east, Storm Emma, created havoc on Tullamore Farm at the end of February. Frozen water pipes, rehousing cattle and snow drifts all took a huge effort from farm staff to sort out.

A calf shelter was constructed on the farm to provide shelter for calves during Storm Emma. An electric fence was erected around the bales and calves spent a few nights in their shelter before being housed.

Shed canopies and open areas let in a lot of snow in the last few days of February. Straw bales were placed in front of some sheds for added shelter.

Seventeen cows and calves had to return indoors as Storm Emma hit the midlands. This put a huge amount of pressure on housing space in the yard.

This heifer calf was born during the first week of March as Storm Emma moved on. She is by QCD (Cloondron Calling). She weighed 60kg and needed a little pull to deliver safely.

Ewes started to lamb on Tullamore Farm on 27 March and the majority of ewes lambed over a busy five-week period.

On 15 March, Tullamore Farm hosted an Agri Aware farm walk and talk open day. The walk was attended by over 500 secondary school students from across the country, where they listened to Irish Farmers Journal specialists go through the technical aspects on Tullamore Farm.

This calf was born with some assistance from Shaun Diver, farm manager on Tullamore Farm. A lot of effort goes in to make sure calves receive adequate colostrum and calving pens are kept as clean as possible around calving time.

Tullamore Farm held its first ever breeding heifer sale on Monday 7 May in Tullamore Mart, Co Offaly. The heifer in the photo weighed 515kg and made €1,250. Average weight was 350kg and average price was €950.

Tullamore Farm hosted a baler demo in mid-May, where five baler/wrapper combination units were put through their paces and tested across a number of areas including bale weight by the Irish Farmers Journal machinery team.

Tullamore Farm hosted an Irish Farmers Journal industry day in June. People attending got a tour of the farm and also listened to a panel discussion with the Irish Farmers Journal agribusiness team.

Summer 2018 will be remembered for the drought conditions experienced on the farm. This photo, taken from a drone by Irish Farmers Journal photographer Claire-Jeanne Nash, gives an idea of how burnt up the farm was.

Grass growth came to a halt in July and cattle had to be supplemented with silage and meal for six weeks.

Cows and calves were held up on paddocks and cows were fed round baled silage. while calves were fed 2kg of creep feed daily in an adjacent paddock.

Aerial footage of some of the paddocks on Tullamore in July.

Ewes were weaned two weeks early in July to save grass. Ewes were kept on bare paddocks after weaning, while lambs were treated as priority and grazed aftergrass.

The majority of the 2017-born bulls on Tullamore Farm were slaughtered in June and July 2018. The bull in the photo weighed 675kg at slaughter. Carcase weight was 420kg (62% kill-out). He graded a U=2= and came into €1,745.

This Limouisn bull was out of a Limousin-Friesian-cross cow and weighed 640kg at slaughter. His carcase weight was 388kg (60% kill-out). He graded a U+2+ and came into €1,722.

Tullamore Farm headed to Tullamore Show with a livestock display in August. Pictured are Justin McCarthy, Shaun Diver and Darren Carty going through how the farm coped with the drought conditions in July 2018.

Tullamore Farm hosted a mini open day on Friday 17 August. Farm manager Shaun Diver gave a presentation on the day.

After the National Ploughing Championships was cancelled, Tullamore Farm got a call from Mairead McGuinness MEP to ask if she could visit the farm along with members of the agriculture committee in the EU parliament. We were only too happy to oblige.

Phelim O’Neill taking the opportunity to ask Mairead McGuinness MEP a few questions on her visit to Tullamore Farm in September.

Niko (Tullamore Farm sheep dog) was one of the highlights of the visit from the EU parliament and he hated every minute of it...

Things finally got back to normal in September, with grass growth returning to normal. Pictured are the 2017-born replacement heifers on Tullamore Farm.

These two new arrivals on Tullamore Farm were put to work at the end of October. Nearly all ewes were tipped inside five weeks, with very little repeats observed.

A new Irish Farmers Journal animal health video series was launched on Tullamore Farm in October 2018. Journal vet Tommy Heffernan and beef editor Adam Woods put together over 20 videos on weanling health, all shot on Tullamore Farm. Videos can be accessed on www.farmersjournal.ie.

Tullamore Farm hosted numerous groups in 2018, including a Macra group on 21 November. The talk was on beef, animal nutrition and winter dosing.

And so the cycle continues. Cows have been body condition scored this month and have started to be fed minerals and 0.5kg soya bean meal daily in advance of calving, which starts on 1 February.