Calving has started a few days early in Clara with seven new arrivals to feed already. All have arrived healthy and well and the calved cows are out grazing full-time. With the amount of grass on the farm after the mild winter and the fodder situation where it is, we will try to take every opportunity to keep cows out to grass over the coming weeks.

Our plan was to open the pit of maize silage next week to buffer feed to the milking herd as it increases in number, but we might just leave it closed for another week or two and get as much grass as possible into the milkers instead if conditions stay reasonably good.

Overall farm cover is sitting at an unprecedented 1,200kg DM/ha with very few covers under 800kg and a half bag of urea has gone out across the whole farm this week. We will leave slurry for the moment until we get some ground cleared of grass. We will also start with some of the lower covers to try to clear ground as quickly as possible to get slurry out on it and get it back growing for the second rotation.

Temperatures are due to get down to low single figures for later this week and next but with grass as good as it is, the risk for us is wet weather rather than cold weather. The grass is out there, it’s all about being able to utilise it properly, rather than walking it into the ground. We might need the maize silage more in March or April or even the summer.

Half of the maiden heifers went out to grass last week and are doing really well out. We will keep reviewing the situation with them as the spring progresses. We have a few options to feed out silage bales to them if conditions take a turn for the worse so it’s just a case of seeing how it goes and adapting as we move along. It might feel like April but the calendar is still only on January, so we will proceed with caution.

We have some stables on the farm that are idle this year so we have them power-washed and disinfected. The plan is to put small batches of calves into them as they are born for a few days before moving them on to the bigger sheds.

This should work well, with each day’s batch of calves spending a few days here in the nursery and then moving to whatever group they will be reared with.

We have a crate for the loader to make it easier to move the groups of calves around the yard so this should take most of the heavy lifting out of it. The stables will be cleaned out and disinfected after each group of calves to keep disease under control.

IFA nomination

Finally, thanks to Kilkenny IFA for nominating me to the IFA national farm business committee at the AGM this week. I’ll try to give this committee the time, energy and attention is requires over the coming years. Maybe we’d all be better working with the organisation – we have to improve it and make it stronger rather than chipping away at the edges.

We’ve all invested heavily in the IFA over the years. It’s our organisation and it’s always done huge work for Irish farmers.

We’re at a crossroads now with beef production, especially with the threat of Brexit, but it’s difficult to see how any other organisation is better placed than IFA with offices in both Dublin and Brussels to protect our interests and get the best possible outcome for Irish farmers.