The start of August in Newford Farm, the 100-cow suckler to beef herd in Athenry, Co Galway, has been characterised by torrential rainfall.

The heaviest of this occurred in a short period last weekend, with over 50mm falling in a period of 24 to 36 hours.

This led to flash flooding. Six acres in the Gort naHabhainn land block that is running alongside a river was under 2ft to 3ft of water at the start of the week.

The saving grace for the farm has been relatively low rainfall levels during the summer and, according to farm manager Iarlaith Collins, ground conditions are holding OK in the main but are coming under pressure in some areas.

Prevalent

This is most prevalent in the lower-lying section of the Gort naHabhainn land block and in the recently added Cones land block.

The Cones land block is a dry block of land but the fact that it has been reseeded is making grazing challenging during heavy rainfall.

Iarlaith says he has given the two grazing groups of steers and heifers a larger allocation of grazing and this appears to be working well in preventing animals congregating in one particular area during heavy rainfall.

Utilisation

Grass utilisation has suffered slightly and stock are being moved on quicker where required.

The remainder of the farm is holding up pretty well and Iarlaith says grass utilisation hasn’t suffered majorly so far.

Paddocks for grazing will be selected carefully over the coming week and with the unfavourable forecast, drier paddocks will be grazed first where possible.

Calves continue to be offered the opportunity to creep graze ahead of cows and access creep-feed offered in troughs. Iarlaith says calves have been slow to creep to date but there are signs of more calves becoming accustomed to it.

All calves were weighed in the last week. Male calves are weighing 239kg on average and have achieved an average daily gain of 1.22kg per day. Heifer calves weigh 230kg with an average daily gain in the region of 1.15kg per day.

Silage progress

If the farm hadn’t received such high levels of rainfall there could have potentially been another couple of paddocks taken out as surplus silage. With ground conditions becoming tricky and grass utilisation reducing, decisions on taking out further surpluses will be held until later in the week.

The silage ground on the Newford block is bulking up well and weather permitting will be harvested in about 10 days’ time.