After what can only be described as an awful start to the year, weather conditions have started to improve. When we started with the project we discussed moving the bulling date back by 14 days to allow us to calve nearer to when we have grass. We followed through with this and calving will be nearly halfway through by the time you read this. When we looked at progress 10 days ago, we were only 15 cows behind last year’s calving, so not too far off after all.

This year we have been working 150g/head of soya in the cow’s diet from six weeks pre-calving and it really has boosted colostrum, milk and calf vigour. The cows that were on the straw and syrup diet over winter have calved down with no difference to those that were on the silage diet.

Our aim for next winter is to have more cows with plenty of condition come housing, so we can make more use of the straw and syrup.

Spring cow and calf at Cranna

Spring cow and calf at Cranna.

This diet has been a real saving grace for us this winter, as it reduced both our straw requirements through drier bedding and our silage requirements. The cows were on the straw and syrup for about nine weeks, meaning a saving of over 20t of silage. This may not seem like much, but for this season every tonne counts. The reduction in feed and bedding required is great and will help to reduce costs going forward.

With the shortage of silage, we have now put some of our autumn in-calf heifers on the same straw and syrup diet, along with some barley, to further spin out the silage stocks. We have also had an offer of some spare silage locally, should we run short. Fortunately, the grass is starting to look a lot healthier and with about 10 days silage still in the yard, we should be just fine.

Lambing

Lambing has finished and we are very pleased with the results. We had a lot of ewes empty at scanning after a tup let us down, meaning we had 57 empty ewes. To keep output up, we bought 44 grit ewes in February and added them to the flock. Overall, we are very pleased with how lambing has gone. The last ewe lambed on Saturday, it’s the first time we’ve lambed everything on-farm in the same calendar month. Currently we have 485 live lambs from 278 productive ewes. This is one of the best performances we have had over the last few years, with the next job being keeping all of the lambs alive.

Ewe and twins on the hill at North Cranna

Ewe and twins on the hill at North Cranna.

The sheep are going to go onto a rotational grazing system again this year. One of the key things that help with our sheep system is clean grazing. We put new grass down every year and ewes with their young lambs are always first to graze it. This means a minimal worm burden for the young lambs, driving growth rates and getting them out of the system as quick as possible, with as few treatments as possible. Based on last year’s performance, we are going to aim for a stocking rate of nine ewes plus their lambs per acre on rotation.

This should hold the majority of the ewes and lambs, with some older grass available as a reserve if growth does not meet expectations. To drive growth, we applied 185kg/ha of 27% sulfan in early April, once the soil reached 5°C.

With the season being what it was, this is a couple of weeks later than last year, but the grass is starting to respond to it now. We are going to split the field in to six this year. The four paddocks last year were just a little on the large side, especially when we took one quarter out as silage early in the season. With the six there will be less grass out of production if some comes out as silage, but at the same time it will give us greater control.

Tillage

This is the first time we have not sown spring barley in a long time. Sitting on the combine cutting 10ha of spring barley last harvest, after having finished the winter barley three weeks previously, convinced us that it is a hassle.

Also looking at output, if we are increasing stock numbers, we are going to need an extra bit of grass. We will continue with the same area of winter barley and, if required, will buy in a little extra straw. However, as already mentioned, getting more cows onto the straw and syrup diet will mean less straw required overall, so dropping the spring barley should have little impact on the bottom line.

One spring crop we will not be dropping is swedes. We have grown them for a long time and are big fans. They are fed to all stock classes, bar dry cows, and we see a real benefit from them. We grow them on the ridge as all those fed to the cattle are lifted, along with some for newly lambed ewes if grass is not there. We are especially glad to have them this spring, with the shortage of grass that there has been.

First-calved heifers.

First-calved heifers.

The balance of the swedes have historically been used to finish the lambs on, however, last summer it was decided to also graze the ewes on them pre-lambing. This meant selling the very tail end of the lambs store, leaving plenty for the ewes. Again, this has been a godsend in the conditions and they came up to the lambing well.

We are also going to put in an area of hybrid brassica for grazing this year. Last backend a field of grass was destroyed by the cattle with conditions being so wet and rather than try to reinstate it we are going to turn it over. The plan is to finish the lambs on this, easing the pressure on the swedes for the ewes.

Preparation

Looking ahead to next winter (already) we are going to be doing some rejigging of some of the sheds over summer.

Fig 1. Current layout of sheds at Mains of Cranna

Fig 2. Proposed layout of shed at Mains of Cranna

Currently, one of the sheds at Mains of Cranna has a large centre feed pass, with scraped passes either side. One opens onto a large bedded area and the other leads to some aged cubicles.

The cubicles have run their course and are done. The plan is to pull out the cubicles, the feed pass and an external wall, split the shed in the opposite direction and feed from the outside.