Pat O’Reilly

Clare

I finished up the last of my second cut 10 days ago and have followed it up with 35 units of Sulfa-Can per acre. It yielded a good crop and I have plenty of silage in the pit this year. Land here is suffering badly from drought. Apart from the small volume of rain at the weekend, I have received very little rain in the last two months.

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Grass has become stemmy due to drought stress also. I am using autumn-calving cows to clean out paddocks before they calve and following up with Sulfa-Can. This is reducing grass demand, keeping cows fit before calving and also leading to a nice cover of clean, fresh grass in regrowths. The first two autumn cows that calved delivered a great surprise with one cow having twins and the other triplets. All calves are alive and doing OK.

The stocking rate on the farm is high. I had purchased Angus and Friesian bullocks for finishing but with the drought these are adding further to tight grass supplies. The rain I received last weekend and fertilizer applied should start growth up again. I will keep fertilizer rates high for the next couple of weeks to help get a surplus of grass ahead of stock again.

I have bulls on the point of slaughter. They are between 650 and 700kg and are a mix of U and E grades. I would have normally exported these as weanlings but I was locked up with TB last year and this sent me down the finishing route.

I am currently weaning December- and January-born calves and will begin feeding these in troughs. These calves have performed well and I estimate are weighing between 300kg and 350kg. I will offer them the best quality grass and use weaned cows to follow priority stock and graze out paddocks, which will also reduce grass demand. I will weigh up the market and make a decision on whether to sell a percentage of animals or carry over the winter. Spring-born calves have been fed no meal at grass yet.