According to the calendar hanging on the wall, spring has started and growth, green shoots and warmth should be all around us. According to the astronomical calender, however, we will have to wait for the real spring to start on 20 March. This is a lot closer to the traditional Irish turnout of St Patrick’s Day, so maybe previous generations were working a lot closer with the seasons than we are now.

The cows have been out grazing here in rain, frost, snow flurries and some sunny warm days over the past month. There has been a small amount of damage in a few gaps and along ditches but for the most part, it has been manageable and doesn’t feel like we’ve been pushing out the boundaries too much.

The cows have been supplemented with maize silage and 4kg of concentrates for most of this time so they’ve been very settled and well fed while still managing to graze paddocks well. On the wettest days, we are leaving a higher percentage of grass behind us in the paddock but, in general, they are doing a good job.

The first paddocks grazed in January and February are showing some recovery at this stage but not as much as we’d like. The warmer temperatures forecast over the next few days should change that. The farm has been covered with fertilizer and we are continuing to follow the cows with slurry.

Calving has continued very well with 80% calved at this stage and while they will slow down a lot now, we should have over 90% calved by the end of March. The yard is very busy at the moment with calves in every available space, but as long as they remain healthy the workload isn’t too bad.

We put some of the maiden heifers out to grass last week and the rest will go out by the end of this week. Again, they are doing a bit of damage on the worst days but hopefully the positives of having them out grazing early will outweigh the negatives. We will spread some slurry on this ground as well after grazing and roll it later in the spring. If necessary, we can patch some grass seeds in here and there.

We also had some unexpected Chinese visitors last week. The lifting of the US ban on Irish beef has been making headlines in China and there seems to be a renewed interest in sourcing beef and dairy products in Ireland. It’s difficult to know exactly what these visitors were looking for, with a lot of the conversation literally lost in translation.

Their form in New Zealand would suggest that securing food supplies through land ownership and even control of processing facilities would be high on the priority list. However, that would be a lot more difficult to achieve in Ireland than in New Zealand.

A portion of the populations in major Chinese cities are very wealthy, highly educated and conscious of food safety. They believe Irish food is the safest and best in the world and if we can build partnerships with companies to supply this high-end market with top-quality Irish beef and dairy produce it could be very lucrative. 2016 may be the official Chinese year of the sheep but unofficially they seem to be concentrating more on cows.