The calving season started last week with a few calves arriving a week ahead of schedule as usual but the real due date is this week so we will see numbers of milking cows rising rapidly from now on.

We have started grazing the milkers again this week as they begin calving. They are grazing a paddock near the parlour with a cover in the middle of the wedge to get them started. We will move to some of the heavier covers next week after they settle back into the grazing routine.

We divided the first paddock in half from the gap to the far ditch and we are walking the cows in across the ungrazed grass and locking them into a section towards the back of the paddock each day. We always do this at the start of the grazing season and find that it works well to mind ground under the cows’ feet.

If the weather is fine, they stay in the field until evening milking time and if it starts to rain they are pulled in a bit quicker.

We will get a half bag of urea out over as much of the farm as possible during the next week to kick-start the growing season again as well as following the cows with slurry as soon as we get some grass cleared off paddocks. The farm opening cover is the highest that we’ve seen with almost 1,200kg of grass available per ha at the start of the season. We will start moving through this grass very quickly over the next few weeks as the numbers of cows calved builds up.

We will be putting the first of the calves on the automatic feeder later this week and getting them settled into the system as quickly as possible. We try to set up that shed as labour efficiently as possible and rear the first 100 calves there.

The pallets of milk replacer and concentrates are placed in the shed to reduce the need to carry bags around. We feed bales of hay in a small ring feeder and water is always available in a couple of small troughs.

We will still walk through the shed two or times times daily to see how calves are looking and to try to find any problems as soon as possible. The feeder also alerts us to any calves that might not be as active as usual or are slow to drink, etc. We will dehorn the calves before they go to that shed and hopefully the next time we handle them will be for weighing at weaning and for vaccinations before going out to grass.

We decided to feed Heiferlac milk replacer again this year with 26% protein content to ensure that the calves get the best possible start in life. We will feed six litres per calf per day at a 150g per litre inclusion rate to push calves on as much as possible before going to grass.

We tend not to feed much concentrates to calves at grass so we try to get them as strong as possible inside before weaning so that they are capable of grazing large volumes of grass straight away when they are turned out in April.

We had a new tractor arrive on the farm this week as well and just in time for the busy season. We have decided to hire a tractor every year for the moment rather than purchase one outright. The price for the year and the hours that we can put up are agreed beforehand and the full cost of maintenance is carried by the garage so there are no surprises in terms of the annual running costs. The full lease cost is written off against farm profits for the year with no complications.