Declan Marren

THRIVE farm, Cashel

Growth has been strong over the past few weeks although it is beginning to settle to a more typical level for the time of year. There is lots of grass. Second-cut silage ground is now being grazed which has lowered the demand for grass. Finishing cattle have started to receive 2kg meal/day which is further slowing the grazing rotation.

Last year, we felt we started feeding cattle too late in the year and this delayed slaughter date. To avoid this happening this year, 43 bullocks and 37 heifers started meal feeding on 1 August. Cattle are coming into the shed once a day for feeding to avoid poaching around troughs in the paddocks. The first cattle will be drafted for slaughter in about three weeks’ time.

Willie Treacy

Hackballscross, Co Louth

We have had a lot of rain here again in the last few days but ground conditions are fine. Last week the weather was great. Grass growth is flying. It’s doing now what it failed to do all spring. Usually we get a big dip in growth in late July but that hasn’t happened this year. It will all be needed. First-cut silage yield was quite poor so I have more ground closed off for cutting in a few weeks’ time to ensure we have sufficient winter feed. Cattle seem to be thriving. The weanling bulls are really pushing on over the last few weeks. I haven’t started creep-feeding yet. It will probably be September before the feeders go out. Autumn calving started about three weeks ago and at this stage we have 30 cows calved.

Chris McCarthy

Crookedwood, Co Westmeath

We are starting to build grass covers for autumn. At the moment I am following the cows with around 30 to 35 units of nitrogen. I may go with another round of fertiliser before the closing date on 15 September. In general, ground conditions are good thanks to the dry week last week. We had torrential rain on Monday night with floods on the land but ground was able to take it and things are fine again.

We weighed cows and calves for BEEP-S and are happy with performance. We also scanned the cows recently and unfortunately had more empty than we would have liked. Blood tests show that there is an iodine deficiency on the farm. Empty cows will be culled and replaced with in-calf heifers.