Praties are scarce and the meal is too high,

And the fodder is bad and the cattle will die,

Famine is coming. You had better prepare.

‘Tis the end of the world says Paddy from Clare.

That’s a verse of a song called The Jobber from Clare. It’s a song over 50 years old about a know-it-all pessimistic cattle jobber and his expert views on everything.

No doubt those words could just as easily have been overheard in every parish in Ireland this summer. Indeed in some places, they are probably an annual tale from the parish pessimist.

Prepare your own farm

So long as you take advice like that for what it is worth and work on preparing your own farm you’ll be alright. The trouble begins when you start taking heed of outlandish stories and you let it cloud your decision-making to the point where you stop making decisions.

Straw has played a big part of the farming system here, especially in the last 10 years, but it’s proving difficult to come by.

With that in mind, there’s a few different options considered to deal with the situation rather than complain that there is little or none compared to other years. It’s just a case of asking where we can do without it.

Availability of straw

The availability of straw has been contracting for a number of years and has probably advanced a decade in one year in 2018.

Difficult planting conditions for cereals this spring combined with difficult harvest and poor returns in recent years have all contributed to a staple annual in many farmyards becoming a scarce commodity.

The once golden scenes of August and September have turned green

Given the financial challenges encountered by tillage, it’s easy to see why converting farms from cereals to milk powder production is an attractive option but weather proved to be the catalyst in speeding up its scarcity.

In this little corner of the world, with the sea in front and a hill behind me, the once golden scenes of August and September have turned green. It’s a sign of the times and market reality. I certainly can’t foresee the reintroduction of the compulsory tillage act of the early 1940s any time soon.

Growth

The return of the rain kickstarted grass growth. There’s a bit more silage to be got yet and it’s looking increasingly more like we will have to build autumn covers a bit earlier in an attempt to prolong grazing and even possibly out-winter a few cows to make up for a straw deficit that is ever more likely.

With the spurt in grass growth, there has been a notable change in the cows’ demeanour. The lush green grass might look the part but cows don’t seem as content as they were when they were on stemmier grass.

Cal-mag buckets have been put out a little bit earlier than other years as a precaution.

Scanning will take place soon enough so that will be the first stage in putting a plan together for the winter.

As it stands, two have been showing heats since the bull was removed and they had been part of the group that was with him for the entire breeding season, so maybe the weather variability this year was too much of a test for them.

Calves are thriving well and they will be split into bulls and heifers groups after scanning. Feeding will commence on the culls and there is a strong possibility of the cull heifers being housed as well to reduce demand on grass and kick-start their finishing regime.