Well, things can change quickly. September brought with it a sudden shift in the weather, with heavy rain we hadn’t seen for months.

Thankfully, we managed to get the third cut in on time and are pleased with the amount of silage harvested this year.

With the third cut done early and grass growth rates still relatively strong, we decided to reseed two more fields that were underperforming due to having a high percentage of weed grasses.

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Unfortunately, the weather broke, delaying the reseeding, but I’m hopeful we’ll still get them in this month. Reseeding is never straightforward, but it’s an investment worth making when you can see the improvements in yield and quality over the years that follow.

Housing these dry cows, has taken a lot of pressure off the grazing ground

Cows in the autumn batch, due to calve in the first three weeks of October, were housed last week. They are on a diet of silage and minerals and will not graze again until next spring.

Housing these dry cows, has taken a lot of pressure off the grazing ground, hopefully allowing us to extend grazing later into the autumn. That said, it’s usually the weather that forces us to house cows rather than a shortage of grass.

Scanned

At the end of August, we scanned the spring-calving batch, and the results were actually better than I expected.

I had extended the breeding season into April, but only eight more cows went in calf during that time.

The majority are due earlier in the spring.

There are just eight cows carrying over into the autumn batch and these will be bred again around Christmas time. Out of this group, five are first-lactation heifers, all of which calved at the beginning of the spring batch in early February.

Farm walk

Recently, I attended a farm walk where someone mentioned giving heifers minerals for a longer period, since these animals don’t always get minerals through other means.

It made me realise I’ve been a bit sparing with minerals, only starting the heifers three weeks before calving with a pre-calving mineral.

This year, I plan to provide more minerals to heifers to support them in their first lactation and hopefully improve in-calf rates next year.

While many farm walks can feel repetitive, I always think you can pick up at least one useful idea worth trying on your own farm.

In August, we also marked a big milestone – it is 40 years since one of the men started working with us. If you know him, you’ll know his two favourite lines: “The only mistake I made in 40 years was missing the turn up to the neighbour’s farm,” and “I would have served a shorter life sentence.”

It can’t have been easy working through three generations – my grandpa, my dad, and now me, as each of us had our own ideas, and farming has changed considerably over the last four decades.

I often see farmers online defending their time off farm, but this shouldn’t need to be the case

I doubt whether the next person will last quite as long, and I’m certain that no modern machine or technology will get even close to being around for 40 years.

I often see farmers online defending their time off farm, but this shouldn’t need to be the case. Everyone deserves a break particularly within farming, when days hours tend to be longer and days off are rare. Good help on the farm makes all the difference, giving you the chance to take that much-needed holiday.