The farm is running smoothly enough now, with the breeding season entering the fifth week and the first-cut in the pit since the dry weather in early May.

There are only two cows left to serve out of the 300 going through the parlour. We gave Estrumate to the last nine cows that hadn’t cycled and seven of these came bulling within three days.

The other two will get another shot of Estrumate in a week, but if that fails to generate some activity, they are on their own.

First service

The cows that have been served seem to be holding very well to first service, with only about 30% repeating. We will continue with AI for the next week until six weeks are complete and then the bulls will go out with the herd to tidy up for a month.

The heifers are looking very quiet too after four weeks with the stock bulls. We didn’t synchronise these girls, but hopefully most will calve in the first three weeks.

Last spring, the bulls picked up 80% on the first cycle and a repeat would see us busy enough next February without any need for intervention.

The good weather this week should see a lot of the silage in the country cut. The bigger machines available now mean that a full week of sunshine fills up a lot of pits in a hurry. The warm dry weather should also see cows settle down a bit.

We had a few torrential showers of rain last week and afterwards the cows were unsettled in paddocks for a few days.

Even on a fresh patch of low covers, there was a bit of protesting, as they were locked into the paddock every day.

Returning to normal

It was difficult to put a finger on the main issue with them. There was thunder and lightning, heavy hail showers or maybe a lush uptake of nitrogen after the dry spell suggested, but either way they have settled back down this week, with the milk tank also returning to normal after a small dip.

They left grass behind them in some of these paddocks, but we can bale them in the next round of grazing if necessary.

This week should see growth rates and farm covers rise quickly, with plenty of moisture in the soil and warm weather forecast.

We will take out some wraps as we hit a surplus of grass, but we have 10% of the farm with reseeds just starting to show, so that should also help to keep covers under control for another few weeks.

Reseed

We baled this reseeded ground three weeks ago and the contractor went in with a Moore Unidrill after lifting the bales and stitched in Top 5 Extend grass seed.

The field was then sprayed with Roundup before the seed germinated. This should see the field turned around very quickly in this weather and possibly back in the grazing rotation six weeks after sowing.

Labour is the big issue on most farms this year. There seems to be a lot of people struggling to find and hold on to good people.

Robots are looking like a more credible option on a lot of farms for this reason and the need for a high-throughput robot for a traditional grazing system is getting more urgent all the time.

Long days and long periods without any time off will lead to burnout very quickly.