It has been another busy few weeks here in Abbeyleix. We got the 12 acres reseeded and rolled in, and now all we need is a drop of rain to get it moving. Looking at the forecast, there doesn’t seem to be much coming, so hopefully this dry spell won’t scorch it too badly before it gets established. The field got slurry and dung before sowing, so there should be plenty of fertility there, and once the grass comes up I’ll be able to keep the dairy washings going onto it as well.

I used the Alpego one-pass machine for the first time and I have to say I was very impressed with it. Having everything done in one pass is a great saving on both time and diesel, especially when there are plenty of other jobs waiting. We subsoiled the ground beforehand too, and I think that helped leave a lovely seedbed. Hopefully it will also help the roots get down if this dry weather continues.

We also had our routine hoof trimming visit. We picked out 12 cows that we thought might need attention and, out of those, nine had some small issue that could have turned into lameness if it had been left. It just shows the value of staying ahead of these things instead of waiting until a cow goes lame.

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I decided to take out the second cut as bales this year. It only yielded about three bales to the acre, but I wasn’t chasing bulk. We have plenty of silage in the yard already, so I was much more interested in quality than quantity. I’m hoping they’ll test somewhere around the 80% DMD mark because they’ll be very useful feed next spring.

Once the bales were cleared, we got the last tank of slurry spread at about 2,000 gallons to the acre. It’s fairly dry out there, so the nitrogen might be slow to work, but at least the phosphorus and potassium are going back into the ground. I also spread a bag of 0-7-30 on a few paddocks that need it according to the soil samples. It’s no harm keeping on top of fertility when the indexes tell you where attention is needed.

The cows are milking around 23 litres at the minute. Protein has slipped back a bit to 3.67%, which is a bit disappointing because the grass quality looks excellent in front of them. Butterfat has been holding well though, anywhere between 4.36% and 4.63%, and thankfully the SCC has settled back around the 100,000 mark for the last few collections, so hopefully that’ll stay that way.

When I measured grass on Monday, I was surprised to see growth still running at 82kg of dry matter per hectare. I thought it would have slowed more by now, especially with nearly three weeks gone without any worthwhile rain. I think we’ll see the effects over the next week if things stay as they are.

Cover per cow was sitting at 270kg DM/LU, which might look a little high, but I’m not taking out any more paddocks for bales. Every paddock is like aftergrass after pre-mowing, so even where covers are a bit stronger, the quality is excellent. If this dry spell drags on, I’ll be glad of every blade of grass that’s there. There wasn’t a paddock over 1,600kg cover on Monday, so I’m happy enough with where things are.

We also had the cows scanned recently. In the end we had eight cows empty, with five of those having lost embryos. That’s disappointing, but the positive is they’ve all been served again and have another chance.

Looking at the figures, our first-service conception rate worked out at around 65%, which I’m very happy with. You’d take that every year.