Newford Herd is focusing on putting preparations in place for the breeding season, which is due to start on 27 April.

The majority of cows have been vaccinated for leptospirosis and received a copper-based mineral bolus in the last week. The remainder of cows, excluding a handful of cows which are left to calve, will receive the same treatment over the next week.

Cows have also been tail painted, with records taken of cows coming into heat. The information is being used to identify cows that may be experiencing issues which will delay resumption to cyclicity and allow these cases to be investigated.

Sire selection criteria is being considered at present and this will be finalised in the coming days to allow AI straws to be ordered before the start of breeding.

High level of activity

Farm manager Iarlaith Collins reports a high level of activity and is pleased that the herd is well on target to repeat previous years' performance of a high conception rate of in the region of 90% of cows put forward in the first six weeks of breeding.

Vasectomised bulls were also sourced from the same source as previous years. An extensive health programme is in place to limit the risk of bringing any disease on to the farm.

Calving update

There are just four cows left to calve following two births on Thursday. The majority of cows calved at the start of the season, with just six cows calved since 16 March.

Some of the cows which exited the herd due to infertility in 2019 or were slow to breed in 2019 were first- and second-calvers which bore the brunt of a difficult previous 12 months.

This year’s first-calvers were given preferential treatment and Iarlaith says this has already shown to be of benefit, with most of them already coming into heat.

Grass management

Cows and calves were recently split up into four grazing groups, with a batch transferred to Cones outfarm and another batch to Gort na hAbhainn.

This was done to graze off silage ground before closing and also to ensure there is sufficient grass supplies on the Newford block to meet the high grass demand during the breeding season.

This week’s grass performance, compiled by Teagasc's Michael Fagan is detailed in Table 1.

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