Weather: For the first time in a long time, the long-range weather forecast is for dry and settled weather with higher temperatures. With a long list of jobs to do; spreading fertiliser and slurry, fencing, letting out maiden heifers, selling bull calves, dehorning, etc, you need to prioritise what jobs you are going to do yourself and what jobs you are going to outsource. The mistake too many people make is to try to do everything themselves and either fail to do so or only do half a job. Some farmers need a reality check; spring is at least a month late and milk prices are low and predicted to fall further. Dairy farmers’ expertise is in managing cows and grass, so focus your efforts in these areas to try and rescue what has been a difficult spring and let others focus on the tractor work and other more straightforward jobs.

Protein: Milk protein percentages seem to have dropped sharply across the country in the past week, with many results down around 3.1%. Milk proteins will drop at this stage of lactation anyway, but this reduction is much steeper than normal. The bad weather, lower intakes, average quality silage, extra stress and not enough energy in the diet are all combining to reduce the protein percentage in the milk. The expectation is that it will rise again but the rise is nearly always slower than the fall.

Cows on average-quality grass silage and 3kg or 4kg of 16% protein meal are going to be deficient in both energy and protein. Energy in the diet has a much bigger effect on protein in milk than the protein composition of the diet, so don’t be persuaded into buying a higher protein meal to boost milk proteins. Spring grass, when grazeable, is the highest energy feed available so focus on getting as much of this as possible into cows over the next few weeks to accelerate the lift in protein.

Dehorning: On the livestock pages this week (pages 38 and 39), we test five dehorners to find out which one is the best buy. There is some debate about the best way to dehorn, with some farmers happy to just burn a ring around the bud and leave the bud intact while others like to scoop out the bud. In our test, we scooped out the bud as we felt this is what most farmers do.

The key thing when dehorning calves is to carry out the job before the horn buds grow into horns. This makes the job easier and is less stressful on the calves. Best practice is to inject 3ml of local anaesthetic into the nerve under the horn and halfway between the base of the ear and the corner of the eye. This is a legal requirement for all calves over two weeks of age. Clip the hair around the horn, wait a few minutes for the anaesthetic to kick in and then dehorn. Spray the buds with antiseptic spray after. Calves will be a bit shook for a few days afterwards with suppressed immunity, so keep an eye out for signs of scours and delay dehorning if calves are exposed to bad weather to reduce stress.