The drought has really tightened its grip here in Abbeyleix and, to be honest, grass has all but disappeared at this stage.

The next few paddocks in the rotation are only carrying covers of 500-700kg DM/ha, so there is very little grass in front of the cows. It’s probably the toughest grass situation we have faced since 2018, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of relief.

I increased the meal in the parlour to 6kg just over a week ago, but it is becoming obvious that we will have to go another step further. At the moment, I am weighing up two options.

One is to push meal feeding up to 9kg/cow in the parlour, while the other is to feed a palm kernal (PKE) and soya hulls blend in troughs out in the paddocks.

I haven’t completely made up my mind yet, but I am leaning towards feeding the extra meal through the parlour.

From a cost point of view there isn’t a huge difference between the two options. The parlour nut is a higher-quality feed than the cheaper PKE and soya hull mix, so the economics work out fairly similar. The only concern is whether the cows will comfortably eat 9kg during milking, but we did it successfully back in the 2018 drought and a few farmers in our discussion group have already gone to those feeding levels this summer without any issues.

Every field looks much the same and until we get meaningful rainfall, the situation isn’t going to change

Convenience is another factor, as it avoids the extra labour of feeding in the field every day. I haven’t even bothered doing a grass walk for the last few weeks because there is very little to measure. Every field looks much the same and until we get meaningful rainfall, the situation isn’t going to change.

The 12-acre reseed has germinated, but it is far from where I would like it to be. It came up a few weeks ago, but it is very patchy, with some areas still waiting on seed to germinate.

The lack of moisture has really held it back. Last week I spread the parlour washings over it, at roughly 8,000 gallons per acre. They were little more than dirty water, but every bit of moisture helps. Hopefully it will be enough to keep the young plants alive.

By Tuesday we had only received 8mm of rain, which barely dampened the ground, and unfortunately the forecast isn’t offering much encouragement. We are still a long way from being out of trouble and it will take far more than one shower to get grass growing again. The soil profile is crying out for a proper soaking, and until that happens, growth is likely to remain at a standstill.

Thankfully we have plenty of silage in the yard, so there is no immediate panic. Having good silage reserves gives us options and means the cows won’t go short of feed.

On the breeding side, I have been disappointed by the number of cows that have come bulling again since AI finished. Going by the collar data, it looks like we could already be sitting at around 13% empty, and there is every chance the figure could be even higher.

On the sheep side, Klara had another good run of ram sales over the past few weeks, as demand has been very strong

Hopefully some of those repeat heats are false alerts and a few of the cows are actually in-calf. I plan to pregnancy scan a batch of them over the next few weeks to get a clearer picture.

Hopefully, the collars are proving to be a bit over-sensitive, rather than giving an accurate reflection of where we stand.

On the sheep side, Klara had another good run of ram sales over the past few weeks, as demand has been very strong.

The ewes were sponged on Monday and the plan is to let the ram out 14 days later and to keep lambing as compact as possible. We’re using the same stock ram again this year, as his genetics are in the top 1% of the breed. The only drawback is that we can’t breed our replacement ewe lambs back to him, so we needed to bring in some new blood.

Klara, with Charlotte in tow, headed to the Irish Suffolk Sheep Society Premier Show and Sale in Roscrea, where she bought a few Irish Suffolk ewe lambs.