Cattle seem to be more settled again at this stage. There was a period after the arrival of the rain when stock were hard to keep settled at grass. This was probably due to the rapid drop in dry matter in the grass along with a sudden update of fertiliser that was on the ground waiting for the moisture to arrive which maybe soured grass slightly.
All farms are seeing their average farm cover increase significantly over the last three weeks. While building grass reserves on the farm is good to a certain extent, farmers need to maintain quality. Avoid entering paddocks that have gone too strong for grazing. 
Grazing grass that is too strong will only slow up the rotation and mean that grass ahead of cattle will be getting out of control, compounding the situation further.
Take the opportunity over the next couple of weeks to cut surplus grass as baled silage. This will provide you with some top quality silage that can be fed to priority stock over the winter months while helping to keep grass quality in check ahead of grazing stock for the next rotation.
Dromard, Sligo
Growth has been very strong for the last two weeks. We have enough rain at this stage, we could do with getting back to more summer-like conditions. Calving starts for the autumn herd from 1 August. Cows are in good condition, we have been grazing them hard to try and manage it in the run up to calving. Grass is building nicely on the farm which is just ideal, once cows calve they will need a lot more grazing. On the outfarm, we will start to draft heifers for slaughter from early August without any meal feeding. They are around 550-575kg at the moment.
Milltown, Co Cork
The burst of growth we had for the past few weeks has settled to a more typical level. Calves are doing well, grass quality is good, we are grazing covers of 1,400-1,600kg DM/ha at the moment. I have a couple of paddocks to take out over the weekend to keep quality in check. Breeding has finished at this stage, we had a few more repeats than normal this year but we picked up any issues when we scanned nine weeks into breeding. It really is worth doing as it will hopefully have saved us having a few empty cows come the end of the year.
Knockcroghery, Co Roscommon
Growth is back compared to the last couple of weeks. Second-cut silage ground is now back in the rotation so it will be lowering the growth figure slightly until it gets going. Calves are grazing light covers of 900-1,000kg DM/ha so we might be hitting growth rates doing this as well. I want to keep quality in front of calves. I needed to graze some lighter covers so that by the end of the rotation they will have swards of 1,400kg DM/ha. We will start picking Angus heifers for slaughter in the next three weeks. They will be 230-250kg carcase weight at 17-18 months old.
Cattle seem to be more settled again at this stage. There was a period after the arrival of the rain when stock were hard to keep settled at grass. This was probably due to the rapid drop in dry matter in the grass along with a sudden update of fertiliser that was on the ground waiting for the moisture to arrive which maybe soured grass slightly.
All farms are seeing their average farm cover increase significantly over the last three weeks. While building grass reserves on the farm is good to a certain extent, farmers need to maintain quality. Avoid entering paddocks that have gone too strong for grazing.
Grazing grass that is too strong will only slow up the rotation and mean that grass ahead of cattle will be getting out of control, compounding the situation further.
Take the opportunity over the next couple of weeks to cut surplus grass as baled silage. This will provide you with some top quality silage that can be fed to priority stock over the winter months while helping to keep grass quality in check ahead of grazing stock for the next rotation.
Dromard, Sligo
Growth has been very strong for the last two weeks. We have enough rain at this stage, we could do with getting back to more summer-like conditions. Calving starts for the autumn herd from 1 August. Cows are in good condition, we have been grazing them hard to try and manage it in the run up to calving. Grass is building nicely on the farm which is just ideal, once cows calve they will need a lot more grazing. On the outfarm, we will start to draft heifers for slaughter from early August without any meal feeding. They are around 550-575kg at the moment.
Milltown, Co Cork
The burst of growth we had for the past few weeks has settled to a more typical level. Calves are doing well, grass quality is good, we are grazing covers of 1,400-1,600kg DM/ha at the moment. I have a couple of paddocks to take out over the weekend to keep quality in check. Breeding has finished at this stage, we had a few more repeats than normal this year but we picked up any issues when we scanned nine weeks into breeding. It really is worth doing as it will hopefully have saved us having a few empty cows come the end of the year.
Knockcroghery, Co Roscommon
Growth is back compared to the last couple of weeks. Second-cut silage ground is now back in the rotation so it will be lowering the growth figure slightly until it gets going. Calves are grazing light covers of 900-1,000kg DM/ha so we might be hitting growth rates doing this as well. I want to keep quality in front of calves. I needed to graze some lighter covers so that by the end of the rotation they will have swards of 1,400kg DM/ha. We will start picking Angus heifers for slaughter in the next three weeks. They will be 230-250kg carcase weight at 17-18 months old.
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