Heinz Eggert

Co Kildare

Calving is going well here on Shepland’s Farm. I have 29 cows left to calve out of 106. Calving started on 7 February and will, hopefully, be finished by mid-April as the bull was taken away from the cows on 8 July last year. All of my replacement heifers calve at two years of age and this is my second year putting them to my easy-calving Hereford stock bull. To date, I have had four losses of which two died at birth and two from viral pneumonia.

I have 24 suitable replacement heifers to go to the Hereford bull this year. I will re-assess them by weighing, doing a pre-breeding fertility scan and measuring their pelvis widths when I vaccinate them for Lepto and BVD. I also fertility tested my stock bulls last month and they are ready for the upcoming breeding season.

I hope to get my first calvers with their calves out to grass this week. They are getting priority as they are still growing while trying to rear a calf and recover to go back in-calf. I turned my yearling bulls out to grass on 10 March and they weighed 420kg. They weighed 345kg at housing (27 November) and were fed first cut silage and 3kg of concentrates initially, which was stepped down to 1kg and they were off concentrates by four weeks before turn-out.

The heifers went to grass on 15 March and weighed 378kg. They weighed 300kg at housing and were fed silage and 2kg of concentrates. Overall, I was pleased with the weanling’s performance this winter. My farm grass cover is on target at 903kg DM/ha. However, ground conditions are still wet after the rain. To date, I have 40% of the grazing ground grazed off. I hope to start grazing my silage ground this week. I spread one bag of CAN/acre on my grazed paddocks to help re-growth for the second rotation.