Grass is in abundant supply on Tullamore Farm and it's presenting challenges around getting all paddocks grazed by early April.

Average farm cover is at 968kg/DM/ha which is a lot higher than we would like it to be at this time of year.

Forty acres with heavy covers are being closed this week with a target cutting date of the first week in May. These fields were closed up early in autumn after a tight grazing with sheep so quality shouldn’t suffer too much. Two bags of Cut Sward per acre will be spread on these fields this week. We recorded 18 kg/DM/ha this week and our current demand was 16kg/DM/ha without the silage fields closed.

We are finding the heavy covers have stalled in terms of growth while the grazed paddocks are showing great re-growths.

In a change to the system this year, all maiden heifers are going to be bred and sold as in-calf heifers in October 2019

We had 90 ewes lambed in the last seven days along with five cows calved. Cows and calves are back out again after three weeks indoors and ewes are being turned out as they lamb to maximise demand and get the heaviest covers grazed.

All animals are now outdoors, except cows left to calve and ewes left to lamb. In a change to the system this year, all maiden heifers are going to be bred and sold as in-calf heifers in October 2019.

Stocking rate has dropped a little with less cows to calve than previous years. This was a knock-on effect of an infertile bull in 2017 and a follow on high culling rate for 2017.

Heifers will be synchronised and put in calf to easy-calving Limousin and Salers bulls at the end of April

Rather than increase cow numbers again to 120, grazing the heifers will help lift stocking rate. Putting them in calf will also hopefully add some value to them.

Heifers will be synchronised and put in calf to easy-calving Limousin and Salers bulls at the end of April. It’s been an ideal week weather-wise to get stock turned out, fertiliser spread and jobs completed around the farm.

Some extra help has been drafted onto the farm this week with one person on nights for two weeks during the busy lambing period. Ewes are lambing down with plenty of colostrum and ewes and lambs are being turned out after one day indoors in individual lambing pens. Attention now turns to breeding 2019 with bull lists currently being studied to make choices for the 2019 breeding season.