The rain over the last few weeks has put paid to most of our plans with youngstock grazing.

We will bring all of them in off the fields over the next week or so. The in-calf heifers are going straight into the cubicle shed with some of the lighter dry cows and the weanlings going into the slatted shed for the next few months.

The weather has probably shortened the grazing season by a month on most farms locally, with grass left behind on fields in places that are too wet to graze. We will try to keep the cows grazing at least some of the time for the next month, but gaps and roadways are being hit hard every time the herd walks in and out.

Once-a-day milking

A switch to once-a-day milking from this weekend on should help to reduce the mileage for both the cows and the roadways. Even with a good surface in most places, a few cows are starting to feel the walks a bit more this week. They are heavy in-calf and have had a long grazing season, so they don’t owe us anything this late in the year.

The weanlings are on target for weight so we will feed them 2kg of a high-protein ration over the winter to keep them there. The in-calf heifers are also in great order so they will get a mix of silage and 2kg of straw up to calving to keep them fit and healthy.

Thoughts will start turning more towards the spring over the next few weeks and getting the sheds fully ready for the influx of calves. Most of the heavy lifting is done. It’s just a matter of giving the sheds and feeders a final wash and another run of disinfectant.

Hopefully the calves arrive healthy and well for a start and we can see if we can keep them that way as much as possible before trying to find a home for the ones that aren’t being kept for breeding. The calf meetings around the country last week highlighted the problems we are facing into this spring, but unfortunately the solutions were a little more difficult to work out.

With an increased number of dairy calves due to hit the ground again in a couple of months’ time, we will have as much a quantity problem as a quality problem with calves next spring, but at the current price, very few animals have the most important quality of the ability of at least breaking even for potential customers.

Resistance to any form of slaughter programme for young calves or even a well-managed export option may see the supply side of the calf problem increase over the next few years.

We are told that this stems from demand for higher animal welfare standards from consumers of our dairy products. These are the same consumers who demand the highest of standards of food production around the environment, traceability, food safety and food security.

Cheap

They demand the highest of standards but also expect to buy their food at the cheapest of prices. It’s very difficult to square that circle from a farmer’s point of view.

The higher standards mean higher costs for the farmers, but consumers have been allowed to develop the bad habit of expecting these high standards at the lowest possible prices.

Farmers have been driven to chase efficiency any way they can by the extra costs and a price squeeze, but then have the routes to efficiency potentially blocked.

Maybe we need all these standards and regulations and maybe we need people to miss a few meals or spend a few days with an empty fridge to see where their priorities really lie.