We had a lucky break last week when we managed to avoid most of the chaos at the Ploughing by visiting on the Tuesday before all the trouble kicked off. We might have gone up a second day but as has happened throughout this year, Mother Nature played another trump card and agriculture was the big loser again.

I suppose all farming is a gamble anyway and you learn very quickly to be a good loser in all agricultural sectors in this country but hopefully these trump cards are running out and hopefully we can get back to winning the odd hand again next year. Our stack of chips is getting very low at this stage, so our luck would need to turn around soon.

I can’t imagine what it was like for all the people sitting in cars and buses all day and maybe it could have been handled better but we’ve been second guessing ourselves all year with could-haves and should-haves.

It was just another weather disaster in a year full of them. On a positive note, nobody got hurt and keeping people out was obviously the right decision in hindsight, with all the damage that was done.

Silage

We are cutting the last of the silage at home this week and with a good forecast, we should get it into the pit nice and dry. We will move on to the maize at the weekend and hopefully that will go into the pit in good order too with a good combination of green leaf and a ripe cob. We should fill any other gaps in the winter feed budget with our Italian ryegrass arrangement which is starting to bulk up this week. We are still on target to cut this at the end of October so hopefully we get good growing weather for another month at least.

Reducing cow numbers

We have taken the decision to reduce the cow numbers rather than heifer numbers as we come into the winter. We will cull a few extra cows and we are looking at the option of selling off some of the cows that are in-calf to Belgium Blue and Limousin bulls as sucklers. These are the lower end of the herd on production but will make decent money to go multiple suckling and should do a good job rearing two or three calves in their new home.

This will help to tidy up cow numbers and with the in-calf heifer market so weak we will have to carry some of them through to the spring, calve them and see if they are worth any more then. It’s just a frustrating year but with a plan in place now we should get to the end of it without too much long-term harm done.

The in-calf heifers and calves are moving along well now with enough grass ahead of them for the foreseeable future.

We will spread the last round of fertiliser this week as well and take advantage of the extension on that front. It will be interesting to see how grass growth goes for the next couple of months on the back of it.

It will also be a welcome relief to be able to follow the cows and heifers for the full month of October with slurry for a change. With ground conditions as good as they are, there should be little trouble spreading right out to the end of October. Hopefully this will help to get as much out of the back end of the year as possible this year.