Farmer Writes: best-laid plans can well and truly go away

Given how difficult last spring was when it came to getting slurry out, an extra effort was put in over the autumn to divert rain-water from getting into slurry. It was one of the cheaper ways to increase capacity, so gutters were sorted and any problem areas were attended to.

All tanks were emptied and I was in a good position heading into the winter. That was until the end of November when I copped one of the main tanks was up far higher than it should be.

Following a bit of detective work, I found I hadn’t properly tightened one of the caps on a pipe in a diversion channel. Usually there’s enough room in this tank to see me well into February, but for the month of December there wasn’t a day where I didn’t look down to check what level the slurry was at. It was still comfortable at the turn of the year.

Down here escaped the heavy snow that further north of us got at the start of the month. Instead, the precipitation fell as heavy, driving rain from the northeast which hit into the gable of the shed and went into the tank.

This necessitated pumping slurry from this tank into the one across the feed passage. Both were reduced last week when the closed period was over, but it was a lesson to double check everything.

A pair of heifers showed up bulling, so they were pulled out of the group and put in with the cull cows who are being fed on.

They were standing very strong and I’ll observe them when it comes to their three weeks.

If they’re not standing then, I may have to get them scanned just to be safe, but I figured that it made more sense to feed on now rather than waste three weeks wondering.

They’re two of the bigger animals in the group and usually I’d be disappointed to see that, but given where beef price is, that disappointment was very short lived.

In-calf stock don’t usually get ration, so if this is a false alarm I’ll just pay more attention to them in the run-up to calving.

On the subject of feeding ration, for the first year in a long time the bigger weanling heifers got just over a kilo of it per day for the last six weeks.

They were moved to the young stock yard last week and the concentrate levels were halved. It’s safe to say they’re not happy with this and I’m informed of this every time I drive in there. Those heifers are by far the most vocal group in that yard.

Prior to their arrival, it was the smaller heifers who tested my eardrums. Small in number, they made up for it in volume and it got to the point where it made for a more pleasant working experience if I just fed them first.

Vaccinations

Those yearlings that are options for replacements received their initial BVD vaccine during the week too. I think it’s nearly 20 years of vaccinating for it now.

I’m not sure exactly when, but it was around 2005 or 2006. It was definitely 2012 when we took part in the pilot BVD eradication programme ahead of the three compulsory years it was supposed to run.

Four years turned into 14 and there’s still no end in sight for it.

Whatever else, it has damaged farmer confidence in any future eradication schemes.