This year saw us weaning our autumn calves a lot earlier than we usually would. Normally, the calves would stay on the cows up until late August and then be weaned off.

We did this to help keep condition off the cows.

This year, however, we weaned a bit earlier in July and put the calves back on to the grazing rotation they had come off and kicked the cows off to the hill to keep the condition off them that way.

This has worked well and the cows look in good order for calving. We have moved them on to a hill park just behind the home farm for calving.

They will be on the hill by day and on an in-bye field by night to make checking simple.

Autumn calving was due to start on 10 September but as ever, mother nature decided differently, with two cows calving prior to the start. The first cow had a set of twins. The second had a calf that was born fine but died after five days.

With the twins being of similar age to the dead calf, we have taken one twin off and have put it on to the other cow.

Grass growth

The autumn yearlings have been grazing on rotation since they went out. Things did get a bit tight for a while in July when the weather turned cold and grass growth stalled.

2016 born autumn yearlings at grass

This meant that we had to use one of our second-cut fields for them to stretch out the grass ahead. However, with 100kg/ha of CAN (27% nitrogen) applied and a better August, growth has really picked up and they have plenty of grass ahead of them now.

They were also coughing a bit recently and with the season turning, we brought them in and gave them an ivermectin pour-on.

Weighing cattle

We set up the scales before they came in and made sure that doses were applied to bodyweight. We also took note of the weights and have since compared them to how they were when they were last weighed back in May.

Our poorer third performers have averaged 0.62kg/day, while the better calves have performed well, averaging nearly 0.87kg/day on grass.

We are in the process of analysing the weight data and relating it back to the last data set to find cows for going to the Simmental bull this winter.

There are also a couple that won’t see the bull again.

The current plan is to sell five or six of those above 400kg now and the rest will go off in late October/early November, once we have picked out the replacement heifers.

We will probably draw them off shortly as we will start giving the sale yearlings 1kg a day. They still have good grass ahead of them but it will be fine to keep them going.

Silage

Silage is nearly finished now, with second-cut taken off at Glenconglas three weeks ago. Over at Craigellachie, where we got first-cut off early, second-cut was taken off a few weeks back.

Grass growth is still really good down there, so depending on grass demand for the sheep, we may yet cut it a third time in the next couple of weeks.

With all this in, we have 670 bales of silage secured now and there are also around 800t in the pit.

The second-cut silage ground at Craigellachie has had an application of distillery digestate and is growing well.

The second-cut silage ground at Glenconglas has had 100kg/ha of CAN and again has recovered well.

As well as the silage, we also grew 7ha of barley at Craigellachie for feed. This has been harvested and is now propcorned and in the shed. It yielded 5.7t/ha and has given us 150 4x4 bales of straw. We still have 9ha of barley to cut at home and are expecting similar performance from it.

We cut it ourselves with our 1975 New Holland 1540 combine. I like being in control of most jobs, so buying the combine was an easy decision to make.

We have had it now for three seasons and I’m hoping, if I look after it, it will last me a long time yet.

With the nearly double the area of barley in the ground this year, it should reduce our feed costs a fair bit and with the extra straw at home, it will save us bringing so much in.

We still need some and have been working away at carting it home over the last couple of weeks.

It is a long trip over to Spey Bay and back and it takes a bit of time, when we have other things we could be doing.

We are also due to start receiving our annual tonnage of draff shortly, with 250t booked from a local still for pitting.

It will be stored at Glenconglas and will be fed to the growing cattle and autumn cows.

Sheep

Most of the sheep are now clipped, barring a few stragglers still out on the hill. As we worked through them, we weaned the lambs off and separated them in to ewe lambs and wedder lambs.

The ewe lambs are on a silage aftermath at the moment but by the end of September, 120 of them will be away to their winter grazing.

The rest will go off the farm in October, allowing the grass to recover a bit and give us the opportunity to carry a bit of cover in to the winter.

The wedders are now on a six-paddock rotation at home. It is a very simple set-up, made by running a four-wire electric fence across the middle of three relatively equal-sized fields.

Fifty of them are booked to go away fat next week and the rest will carry on grazing on the rotation and we’ll maybe get a couple of draws out of them before the rest head off store.

Grass growth has been good on the fields, so I am considering bringing some of the ewe lambs across on to them too, as we don’t want to waste the grass.

At the same time, we need to preserve some grass for tupping on, so will manage what the wedders get, with having enough grass come the 18 November.

When the grass starts to get tight, the wedders will be moved across on to two hectares of stubble turnips and once they have finished them, they will go away store.

2017 wedder lambs on the grazing rotation at Auchriachan.

This year, we are considering mineral-bolusing half of our ewes.

Our neighbour, Jim Simmons, has had great success with bolusing his ewes, so to see if we can get the same effect, we will bolus half, mark them and then track their performance through the year to see what they do.

Ahead of tupping, we will need to buy one blackface tup but apart from that, we shouldn’t need to spend much on replacements this year, as we have 120 of our own homebred gimmers to come in. And then the annual cycle will start all over again!

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