My slurry tanks are starting to fill up, especially the cow tank. The last 12in always seem to fill up very quickly.

I moved a few loads from the cow tank into other tanks over the weekend to try to buy some time.

Unless the weather takes a massive turn for the better, there will be no slurry spread on fields around here any time soon.

The breeding season seems to have gone very quiet at the moment, which hopefully is a good sign, as most cows that are long enough calved have been served at least once.

Anything that hadn’t shown a heat after being calved for 50 days was synchronised two weeks ago, so I’ll have to wait another while to see how successful the programme was.

I usually aim for 50% to hold to the synchronisation, but secretly hope and usually achieve better.

Too wet

Disappointingly, I haven’t been able to get any calves out to grass yet, as land is simply too wet, but hopefully that will change shortly.

I have reduced the amount of meal being fed to cows, as I am hopeful that a lot of them are in-calf. Silage quality is good and body conditions is not bad.

They are currently getting half a kilo of soya and minerals - they had been getting a kilo of a 17% protein blend along with the soya.

This was already half a kilo less than they would usually be getting in a normal year, but as silage quality was excellent, I decided to try to make a small saving where I could.

Input prices

As the price of inputs continue to increase and farmers try to use less to save money, it will be interesting to see how far things can be pushed and still achieve a reasonable level of productivity.

Management levels will need to be excellent and attention to detail second to none, but most farmers probably do have some room for improvement in these areas, no matter how good they are.

Cows have also received their lepto vaccinations. They would usually receive a BVD vaccination at the same time, but I have taken the decision this year to stop vaccinating for BVD.

Difficult to know if it’s the correct decision, but the numbers would suggest that there is very little BVD left in the country and I never really had many issues at any time, so time will tell. Hopefully, I won’t regret my decision.