Niall Patterson

Co Leitrim

There are 15 acres of grass closed for second-cut and this will be round baled. I budget for a 200-day winter every year and I reckon that I will have my fodder target.

First-cut silage was harvested in mid-June during the hot spell and ensiled in excellent conditions. We kept some of the grass out of the pit and saved it as hay to feed ewes next spring. 10 acres of surplus paddocks were also taken out for bales and yielded five bales to the acre.

The Limousin stock bull was removed from the cows on 30 June. I sold the bull as there are a number of heifers sired by him being retained for breeding. I plan to purchase a replacement bull in the autumn or next spring, depending on quality and value for money.

I intend to get cows scanned in early August. Any empty cows will be sold before housing, which will reduce winter fodder demand.

I plan on separating the heifer and bull calves into two groups at the beginning of August and my December-born calves will be weaned at the end of August. The spring-born calves will hopefully be weaned late in September.

I will remove the cows from the paddocks to wean the calves rather than housing them. I tried this last year and it worked well with minimum stress on the weanlings.

I have been encouraging the calves to creep graze ahead of the cows by raising the electric fence and I intend to begin creep-feeding next week. Bull calves will be fed 2kg of concentrate and the heifers will be fed 1kg.

December-born calves will be sold in the weanling sales in October. All calves have been faecal sampled and will be dosed based on the results. I also plan on weighing the calves in mid-August.

I have been spreading one bag/acre of 18:6:12 after each grazing rotation this summer to boost grass growth and improve soil fertility. We are seeing the benefits of this with improved regrowths and density of the sward.