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Spring calving started on 17 February when we had a couple of cows calving down ahead of their scan dates and thankfully, these animals were fine.
To date, we have 52 cows calved down from 81 in-calf animals. There have been a few losses along the way with one set of twins and two more calves dead.
We sent one calf that was stillborn to the lab for a post-mortem, but the results did not give any definitive cause of death. Another calf had to be put down as it was born without a back passage.
Cows are predominantly calving down to our two Stabiliser stock bulls and our Angus stock bull. The replacement heifers, and a small group of cows, are calving down to the Stabiliser AI sire Givendale Black Resolution.
Post-calving
The cows that have already calved were still indoors at the beginning of the week. My plan would be to start slipping cows out to grass shortly, just as soon as temperatures pick up a bit.
It has been extremely cold with plenty of frosty nights which increases the risk of tetany in freshly calved cows, and on top of this, we have spread slurry on grazing ground.
There is plenty of grass for cows to start grazing, so I will monitor things on a day-by-day basis over the coming week.
In the meantime, those cows that calved are on ad-lib silage with a small quantity of concentrate. I have the first calved heifers and thin cows separated out for priority feeding.
These animals are getting 2kg/day of concentrate on top of silage to give them an energy boost and drive milk production. Calves have access to straw bedded creep areas.
The cows which have yet to calve are now getting silage on an ad-lib basis, having had fodder restricted over winter to maintain body condition.
Cows are also getting a pre-calving mineral dusted over the top of silage every day.
These animals are coming close to calving and hopefully, another month should see the herd reaching the end of calving for another year.
Fertiliser plans for spring grazing
There has been a good build-up of grass over the winter and as soon as ground conditions and weather allows, I will start filtering animals out to paddocks over the coming weeks.
No fertiliser has been applied yet, but I have spread slurry on the grazing ground using a dribble bar in mid-March. Hopefully this will give grass growth a kick-start.
Normally I would spread urea on grazing and silage ground in early March, but it has been so wet this spring that I had to hold off from doing so.
Nitrogen
I did buy some fertiliser recently and opted for CAN, rather than urea for two reasons. Firstly, it is getting a bit late for spreading non-protected urea. Secondly, as the grazing ground has now received slurry, it just needs topping up with nitrogen.
CAN cost around £181/t, which is down by £60/t on last year and a welcome cost saving. I also bought some 23-0-12 for silage ground and it will be spread in April, with the aim to cut in late May.
Silage reserves
We still have plenty of silage on farm, so it looks like there will be a good surplus to carry in to next winter.
However, despite this, we are still planning to close off the usual 60 to 70 acres for first- and second-cut silage this year.
The reason being is that some of last year’s silage would be quite wet, and as we work with bales, I would be slightly concerned that the bales will keep for a second winter.
My aim is to make good quality forage to feed to cows and ?nishing cattle next winter.
Last year’s bull calves are split in two groups, with the heaviest animals being finished as young bulls and the lighter, later-born animals will most likely be finished as steers.
The bulls were weighed at the beginning of March and the group averaged 511kg liveweight at 12 months old.
These animals are currently on 8kg/day of a finishing ration plus straw. The plan is to increase feed levels to 9kg/day before the end of the month, then push them on to ad-lib feeding from April onwards.
Silage quality
Bulls were getting high-quality silage made from surplus grass on paddocks last year, but have now been moved on to straw.
The better silage is now finished, and when offered the wetter fodder, cattle intakes went down.
So rather than risk a drop in performance, straw was introduced into the diet.
Thankfully, we have enough straw on farm to see us through to the end of spring calving, as well as lasting through to late May and June when the bulls will be ready for sale.
Stores
There are 16 bullocks to go back to grass along with 44 heifers, of which we will probably keep 25 for breeding.
The remaining heifers will most likely be finished next autumn, although to ease cashflow, we may offload some animals through the live trade before then.
These cattle have been cut down to 1kg/day of concentrate to prepare them for a spring turnout. Once cattle go to grass, meal feeding will stop.
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