In my last article, I mentioned that the weather had turned wet, just as we were about to start silaging. The showery weather continued, so despite going through everything with the tedder, the silage was still on the wet side.

However, we have never had such a large first cut. The covered silage pit, which is usually 60-70% full after the first cut, was overflowing. We had to put the telescopic handler on top of the pit and get the contactor’s big tractor and buckrake to push it up the sloping face.

The sloping face had to be shoved up afterwards until it was almost straight, in order to get the silage into the confines of the pit.

We still had a field left lying which had to be baled instead. So a bit too wet but plenty of it.

We usually put 1cwt of 24.0.17+SO3 and 2,5000 litres of slurry per hectare on for the second cut. There is no need for a second cut this year, so the fertiliser has stayed in the bag and the cows will graze the aftermath.

Bulls

We have been marketing young bulls recently, but the 400kg maximum deadweight is still catching us out. Nineteen went in the last batch. There were 15 Us and four Rs.

They averaged 14-15 months of age or 441 days and 372kg deadweight. We made them 656kg liveweight in our weighing crush at home, which gives a killing out percentage of 56.7%. Taking 40kg as an average birthweight gives a daily gain of 1.4kg.

Five out of the 19 were over 400kg, but the heaviest was still under 410kg so we got paid the R grade price of £3.65 for 400kg. The average price was £3.70 per kg, gross price per head of £1,376, net price of £1,351 after abattoir deductions. Harvest is just around the corner. The first winter barley was sprayed off with roundup a week ago, so the combine should be rolling at the beginning of next week. As usual, we are at the last minute with grain drier servicing.

We have a “new” mobile grain drier to replace our extremely well used one. Hopefully it will run without a hitch as long as the cereals we put into it are of reasonable moisture content.

It’s supposed to be 25°C here today, which is about 10°C better than usual, so a week of that will certainly help ensure that our harvest fever doesn’t turn into a headache.