Newford Farm, the 100-cow suckler-to-beef herd in Athenry, Co Galway, has the final preparations put in place for calving.

The first cows due to calve have been transferred to the group calving pen and farm manager Matthew Murphy says there are a few cows coming very near to calving.

A slow start

While calving may be slow to start in the first few days, it will quickly ramp up, with 60 of the 90 cows due to calve served in the first three weeks of the breeding season, followed by a further 20 holding to second service and 11 to the third service.

Added to this are 20 in-calf heifers served in a seven-week breeding season.

Advance preparations are key

With such a workload, advance preparations are key.

Calving sheds and individual calving pens were washed and disinfected last week, while all calving aids such as calving ropes, gloves, lubricant, iodine, etc, are to hand.

These are laid out on a table in the calving shed, which is a good idea to reduce stress around calving.

Disinfectant points for dipping wellies have also been set up at the doors of sheds.

Matthew finds that this practice works well in reducing the risk of disease establishing and spreading.

Scraping down slatted tanks

Matthew has also started scraping down slatted tanks on a daily basis, followed by applying a coating of lime.

This practice has also been implemented in recent years in response to a few cases of mastitis and appears to be helping to reduce the risk in cows with a high milk yield in the final stages of gestation.

Strong winter growth

The first grass cover, carried out by Michael Fagan, Teagasc, has put figures on favourable winter growth.

Table 1 details the closing cover on the three blocks of ground farmed in Newford on 26 November 2018 and the opening cover taken on 16 January.

There has been a great response on the Newford and Gort naHabhainn blocks, while Tuohy’s block had a higher cover of grass to start off with and recorded lower growth.

There are some heavier covers present here and, weather permitting, Matthew plans on getting a small number of light weanling bulls out to graze these paddocks and help kickstart growth.

As mentioned last week, slurry was applied on 9.7ha (24 acres) of the Newford block with an umbilical system and trailing shoe spreading method.

Conditions remain conducive to grass growth and, weather permitting, urea will be applied at a rate of half a bag per acre in the coming weeks.