Only about a quarter of the calves have been weaned so far. I’ve used QuietWean nose paddles for the last few years but as most of the weaning will be inside this winter, I’ll be taking a different approach.

The main method this year, because most of it will be indoor weaning, will be to leave them in a pen alongside the cows and after a few days increase the distance between the two groups.

When it comes to weaning at grass, the nose paddles have proved themselves to be very useful. I used them with the calves from the cull group earlier but find they lose them a bit easier when they are indoors.

I was fortunate to get a run of mainly bull calves from the sire in question

Another factor in my decision is there’s a bunch of younger bull calves that are just wired to the moon. They’re all from the one bull. He did his job but we’re paying for that decision in a different way. They’re daft.

I was fortunate to get a run of mainly bull calves from the sire in question so at least it reduces the chances of his genetics staying in the herd in future.

He wasn’t related to any of the 2019 maiden heifers so he ran with them and mopped up the cows once AI was finished. It’s a practice we’ve done before but on this occasion the animal was a bit of a late developer in terms of his quick temperament.

The worst culprits won’t be returning to the bull next year

It didn’t help that in the case of the worst offending calves, the cows were a little nervy too. The worst culprits won’t be returning to the bull next year and hopefully yard work will be a bit calmer next autumn.

The heifer calves are all still out and have about a week ahead of them while the cows have gone out to finish out the grazing. Their numbers are small but they always prove to be a non-fussy bunch when it comes to grazing and that will set up the farm well for early spring while also having a proportion of land with a low grass cover that can take slurry when the time comes.

Ground conditions

The variety of ground conditions over the area we farm dictates when grazing comes to an end. By this weekend the only stock at grass will be on the home block.

September and October grazing conditions made up for the challenges provided by the heavy rainfall in August. It feels like it hasn’t stopped raining in November though.

I’ll feed bales from a few different parts of the stacks and try and get a handle on where the better-quality feed is

I fed the last of the 2019 silage this week so the next step will be to take a few silage samples and see what quality the 2020 vintage actually is.

I’ll feed bales from a few different parts of the stacks and try and get a handle on where the better-quality feed is. It doesn’t have a huge influence on what the diet composition is but it’s a useful way of trying to hold the better bales for cows that are calved. Holding those higher-DMD bales for those cows helps keep the bills down with no meal required.