This year, with high grain prices, we made a special effort to make as good a silage as possible. We also went to the trouble (and expense) of getting it fully analysed through Teagasc in one of the main accredited laboratories. We had taken three cuts - the third cut was very much an afterthought, on account of a good growing year as well as good ground conditions and periods of weather that allowed for good wilting. So, how did they turn out?

The first cut had a DMD of 73.9, according to the details that accompanied the analysis - this should allow a liveweight gain without any cereals of 0.5kg/day in the case of weanlings and 0.6 kg/day in the case of cattle being kept for beef. Whether silage alone even of this quality would finish dairy beef steers adequately, I have my doubts, but I can see ourselves cutting back on supplementation.

Both the second and the third cuts came in at just below 70 DMD at a dry matter in both cases of 26-27%, so again, I was pleased with the outcome. Silage like this should give a weight gain of 0.3kg/day with weanlings and 0.5kg with more mature animals.

These are, taking one thing with the another, among the best silage results we have had for a long time and give us scope for adjusting meal feeding without sacrificing too much weight gain in the case of cattle going out to grass. On the cattle side, we are constantly on the lookout for TB and, as I mentioned before, some years ago we were locked up for over 10 years in a row.

More recently, we have had the very odd reactor, but more to the point, the Department has an active badger vaccination programme being carried out in the area. This seems to be having real results and hopefully will soon result in a TB cattle vaccine.

We have received useful material in the post on how to identify badger sets, of which we have a few. I have also seen some odd deer around, but nothing like the numbers further east in Wicklow. I was not surprised to see Wicklow among the top national black spots for the disease. Culling, it is clear, is the only real short-term solution.

As we try and plan forward for next year, I am amazed at how little public awareness there is on the price increases in fertiliser that seem to be inevitable after Christmas. We got a full soil test last year and spread lime on a few fields to bring the pH up to around 6.8.

The real question now is how much can we utilise the fertility that is in the soil and avoid paying the extortionate prices on our normal full tonnage that appears to be inevitable. People seem to be acutely conscious of diesel and petrol prices having gone up 10-15%. We are looking at fertiliser prices going up around 200% and perhaps even more.