It’s been a challenging few weeks here in Abbeyleix, with grass still remaining tight on the milking platform.

We’ve recorded about 25mm of rain over the past fortnight, which has helped green things up a bit, but it’s far from what we need to kick-start proper grass growth and build up the covers for autumn.

Growth has been sluggish – averaging around 40kg DM/ha over the last two weeks. With demand sitting at 32kg DM/ha, we’re only just about holding covers. The average farm cover per cow is hovering at 160kg DM/LU, which is leaving little room for comfort.

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Milk yield is suffering as a result. It’s been slipping with each collection, and we’re now back to 20l/cow/day. It’s disappointing, but hopefully with a decent dose of rain and improved grass supply, yields will bounce back a bit. On a positive note, milk solids are holding their own – butterfat is at 4.80% and protein is coming in at 3.90%, which is helping to offset the drop in volume.

Somatic cell count (SCC) has spiked recently, mainly due to a few cases of mastitis and a couple of sick cows.

Thankfully, we caught them early and got them treated promptly with antibiotics. They’ve responded well and are back in good health. We also went in with a pour-on again for flies, hopefully that’ll keep any further cases of mastitis at bay.

The heifers out on the outside block are doing well. Covers are strong out there - over 2,500kg DM/ha, the dry weather is helping here and they’re grazing through them cleanly. We’re getting roughly a week per section, and they are very content. This week, they’ll be getting their salmonella booster, and we’ll be dosing them with pour-on for flies too.

We also managed to get great-quality bales off two of our silage blocks. Yields weren’t massive – only about three bales per acre – but the timing was right. One of the blocks was starting to wilt, and the new reseed needed to be knocked to clean off the sprayed weeds quickly, to allow the grass tiller. I went back with two bags per acre of 21-0-10 on the older block, and we applied soiled water to the reseed. Both fields are responding well and, all going well, I’m planning to cut again around mid to late September.

Klara synchronised the ewes and turned in the ram last week. He has tipped all of them at this stage, so with a bit of luck, the majority will hold to the first cycle and they will be lambed down ahead of the main calving period next spring.

Overall, it’s been a bit of a balancing act – trying to stretch grass while keeping production and animal health in check. A good drop of rain would go a long way in helping to turn things around as we head into the backend of the year.