Planned production of 15,000 litres of milk in December was not produced. Grazing came to a difficult end with all the rain and herd body condition score was suffering as more cows were getting lame from the long walks on rain-soaked paddocks and roadways.

Supplementing with high quality round bale silage started in September and over 60 bales of high quality silage have been fed since September.

The herd started on 2kg meal/cow on 10 November and since 17 November the herd has been on OAD milking.

By mid-November the herd was split into 123 milking cows and 112 dry cows but all cows were still out day and night. Dry cows went on the woodchip stand-off pad on 20 November.

Despite the December shortfall, milk deliveries have been very good for the year (Figures 1 and 2). Litres of milk delivered were above budget for March, May, July and September. Fat percentages averaged 4.82% and fat deliveries were consistently above budget for nine months of the year and were slightly below for the other three months.

Protein percentage averaged 3.67% for the year and were also well above budget for nine months of the year, with July and August slightly below target.

In total, 1.31m litres were delivered or 110,659kg of milk solids. On a per cow figure, when we total up all the cow numbers, etc, production will come in close to 400kg of milk solids produced per cow on approximately 300kg of meal.

Tight grazing of the herd continued right into November and grass quality was maintained at 76 to 78 DMD and protein of 19% to 20% crude protein. Somatic cell count (SCC) has been an issue on the farm. The annual summary will show that milk from February to June will average less than 200,000 cells/ml while July to October will average 250,000 cells/ml and November will come in at about 300,000.

In the first week of December the closing farm cover was 569kg DM/ha. Farm cover fell from 700kg per hectare in early November to less than 550kg by the end of November. At closing, four of the 25 paddocks have a cover of almost 1,000kg and are earmarked for grazing in late January and early February. Ten paddocks have a cover of 600kg and the rest of the paddocks have a cover of less than 400kg.

At a predicted opening cover of 600kg DM/ha in early February, the herd will need an additional supplement of 200 high quality round bales and approximately 200kg of meal per cow next spring. This is based on the predicted calving pattern. If there is more grass on the farm after the winter, then less supplement will be required. The plan is to turn calved cows out on grass as soon as they calve and supplement the grazed grass with meal and quality baled silage if necessary. Over 65% of the maiden heifers will calve down in the first 14 days of calving, starting in mid-January.

Cow scanning results reveal four cows to calve in January, 128 in February, 73 in March and 36 in April.

Most of the cull cows have been sold (averaging €570) but there are still 20 cows that have not been sold.

Most of these are in calf and have been dried off in the last 10 days. Summer rain has not had as big an effect on farm performance or forage quality compared with some parts of the country.

Farm measurements show the total rainfall at 750mm for the year to date.

Some parts of the country had this amount of rain in four months from June to September.

While first cut silage harvesting was delayed, it was covered dry and will be adequate for feeding dry cows.

We will complete a full review of the farm’s financial and technical performance in the coming weeks.