My sympathies go out to any farmers who had damage done to buildings and yards last week.
Old photos appeared on my phone recently from eight years ago when a series of February storms, chiefly, storm Darwin, caused a good bit of destruction in these parts.
I was standing in the calving shed when the gusts started to rattle the roof.
There was a crack and suddenly one bay of it was blown away. It came to rest on a ditch 100 yards from the yard.
Luckily, calving was in its early stages and a repair job saw out the rest of that spring before fully replacing the shed roof that summer.
Last week’s gales were a major contrast to a month ago. With weather as good as it was in January and earlier this month, I’m glad I took the chance to dip the toes in and got some small bit of ground grazed.
Calving got under way recently on Tommy Moyles's farm at Ardfield, Clonakilty.
The training the flightier ones got stood to them, meaning that at least they have become a little easier to deal with. Even though they are light and wouldn’t do much damage, they were held in recently.
The wet weather ahead of the arrival of Dudley, Eunice and Franklin meant the on-off grazing for these heifers was restricted to two days over the last fortnight.
As the replacement group is small in number, they were left outside but were given a larger run to give them ditch options for shelter during the run of storms.
During the most extreme wind and rain they have been hugging those ditches but otherwise were found grazing as the rain swirled past. Their comrades remain indoors and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
An old dairy stall converted into five pens is used to allow heifers time to bond with their calves.
On the home block, calving has got under way and a week should see most of the heifers calved. Once they are OK and the weather plays ball, they will be out to grass.
Paddocks close to the house with good ditches and shelter options will be prioritised for them. All are in-calf to either Angus or polled Hereford so there’s no need for dehorning.
This year, calf registration will be a little bit different to what I’m used to. The herd was invited to participate in the next stage of the DNA registration pilot programme.
A tissue tag similar to the current BVD tag will be used on each calf and sent to a central lab. They will then be able to verify the dam, sire and sex of the calf.
The first samples were sent away this week so it’s too early to go through the pros and cons from a farm level yet.
Looking at the bigger picture, this is a welcome development, especially given the level of calves registered with no sire recorded across both the dairy and beef herd.
It will result in better details emerging regarding the progeny performance of different sires. This will be important in terms of carcase traits with more beef cattle emerging from the dairy herd in future.
Data like that is going to be of much more importance in the future of Irish farms than it is now and will help make informed decisions on many farms.
Taking DNA samples as calves is a sensible move and hopefully by the time it becomes industry-wide, it will be the only tissue sample needed and the BVD scheme will be in the rear-view mirror.
Having participated in the voluntary year ahead of the three-year compulsory test, I’m entering my 11th year of BVD testing.
My sympathies go out to any farmers who had damage done to buildings and yards last week.
Old photos appeared on my phone recently from eight years ago when a series of February storms, chiefly, storm Darwin, caused a good bit of destruction in these parts.
I was standing in the calving shed when the gusts started to rattle the roof.
There was a crack and suddenly one bay of it was blown away. It came to rest on a ditch 100 yards from the yard.
Luckily, calving was in its early stages and a repair job saw out the rest of that spring before fully replacing the shed roof that summer.
Last week’s gales were a major contrast to a month ago. With weather as good as it was in January and earlier this month, I’m glad I took the chance to dip the toes in and got some small bit of ground grazed.
Calving got under way recently on Tommy Moyles's farm at Ardfield, Clonakilty.
The training the flightier ones got stood to them, meaning that at least they have become a little easier to deal with. Even though they are light and wouldn’t do much damage, they were held in recently.
The wet weather ahead of the arrival of Dudley, Eunice and Franklin meant the on-off grazing for these heifers was restricted to two days over the last fortnight.
As the replacement group is small in number, they were left outside but were given a larger run to give them ditch options for shelter during the run of storms.
During the most extreme wind and rain they have been hugging those ditches but otherwise were found grazing as the rain swirled past. Their comrades remain indoors and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
An old dairy stall converted into five pens is used to allow heifers time to bond with their calves.
On the home block, calving has got under way and a week should see most of the heifers calved. Once they are OK and the weather plays ball, they will be out to grass.
Paddocks close to the house with good ditches and shelter options will be prioritised for them. All are in-calf to either Angus or polled Hereford so there’s no need for dehorning.
This year, calf registration will be a little bit different to what I’m used to. The herd was invited to participate in the next stage of the DNA registration pilot programme.
A tissue tag similar to the current BVD tag will be used on each calf and sent to a central lab. They will then be able to verify the dam, sire and sex of the calf.
The first samples were sent away this week so it’s too early to go through the pros and cons from a farm level yet.
Looking at the bigger picture, this is a welcome development, especially given the level of calves registered with no sire recorded across both the dairy and beef herd.
It will result in better details emerging regarding the progeny performance of different sires. This will be important in terms of carcase traits with more beef cattle emerging from the dairy herd in future.
Data like that is going to be of much more importance in the future of Irish farms than it is now and will help make informed decisions on many farms.
Taking DNA samples as calves is a sensible move and hopefully by the time it becomes industry-wide, it will be the only tissue sample needed and the BVD scheme will be in the rear-view mirror.
Having participated in the voluntary year ahead of the three-year compulsory test, I’m entering my 11th year of BVD testing.
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