Scanning day on the farm is like waiting for the Leaving Cert results. All the work is done and there is nothing in the world that can change what’s in the envelope.

The results will have a huge impact on how the year ahead is viewed. A bad result means that profit will most definitely be down and the focus has to be on changing the system. That change will cost money, so it is better to make sure that the cows will go in-calf by having them healthy, making sure that the AI techniques are good and that there is enough bull power available.

Getting the cows in-calf has to take precedence over everything else. If there are no calves, there is no milk. It’s so basic and yet so difficult.

The aim is to do better business, but it all begins with the calf. If she’s not there, you are goosed. So the story begins with getting the cow in-calf. Hence, we are back to the bull. Therefore, we were tense as Leo Healy, the scanning technician, drove into the yard. I had my usual job of recording the fate of each animal – because if she’s not in-calf, her bed and board will be cancelled at the end of the season.

While Colm continues his Nuffield travels, it’s back to just us three, Tim, Katherine and Diarmuid.

Heart rate drops

I wear one of those watches that reads my heart rate. It’s normally between 60 and 70 beats/minute. As I walked over to the yard I checked it to find that my heart was at 100 beats/minute. Sometimes we don’t even realise when we are stressed.

I started to think about it. At breakfast Tim had detailed the results of last year’s season as they had just come through on his phone from ICBF. The calving interval was 365 days, 94% of the cows that we were about to scan had calved in six weeks. We had 1.01 calves/cow.

Tim and Colm had worked very hard to achieve that. The fact that the two of them have a proven track record as AI operators is a huge bonus. The replacement rate was 26%. They aim to achieve 20%.

All heifers had calved between 22 and 26 months. So we have work to do to keep this performance up, or do better.

Once the first lot was in and all in-calf, I started to settle. It was a while before Leo apologised for the first empty. He hates giving the bad news, especially when we were on a roll. All in all we were delighted with the result. We had a 7% empty rate.

“A busy February ahead,” says Tim. For fun, I asked: “Where will you be taking me for Valentine’s Day?” “Ha,” quipped Leo “Valentine’s Day is cancelled.”

I glanced at the watch as we headed to the rented ground to scan the heifers: the heart rate was back down to 65.

Junior cert results

With the Leaving Cert results sorted, it was time for the junior girls to perform. Succession is important, so heart rates were up again. Philip was waiting with his charges in the yard. Diarmuid took up his position as drover. It’s a smaller crush so we were down to five at a time. Two empty in the first 10. It was like the cranky wand had been waved across us. We were all snapping except for Leo, who kept the head down, and Diarmuid, who kept bringing on the girls. Phew, things settled as positive results continued. There were four empty, which equalled 9%.

The results were sent on to Colm who immediately wanted to know the numbers and lactations of the cows. Four were in their second lactation. He immediately commented that economically, they were a serious loss. It is probably the worst time to lose a cow.

Ploughing championships

We can now put our energy into minding the cows and heifers and getting as many as possible to calve down next spring. It’s been a challenging year and it’s good to see that the feeding management has resulted in healthy, content animals. We are back to planning for winter, but before that I’m looking forward to hearing the news from around the country at the Ploughing Championships. Call into the Irish Farmers Journal stand for a chat. The drought had a huge impact, let us know how it’s been for you.