Calving is progressing well on Tullamore Farm, with 20 cows now calved in 10 days. As reported last week, there was one mortality at the start but thankfully there were no fatalities since then.

A heifer put out her calf bed and that required veterinary assistance to put it back in. She is now on a course of antibiotics to prevent infection. There was also one heavy pull with a calf and he subsequently required assistance to suck the cow.

If a calf is pulled, the cow is milked and the calf is tubed. This is a standard operating procedure

Springing

Farm manager Shaun Diver also expects to have a busy few days ahead with another seven or eight cows showing strong signs of springing.

A creep area has been set up in the passageway of one of the slatted sheds like last year. Cows and calves are moving over here once strong enough.

However, once they leave the calving pen, they are joined up in another straw-bedded shed first, which has a creep gate for the calves to lie behind. It means cows do not need to be bedded as frequently.

Bulls

The beef bulls are still on 6kg/head of concentrates each day and for the minute, they won’t eat a whole lot more. This is likely due to the high-quality silage being still in the diet.

In the coming weeks, Shaun will be weighing these bulls. If performance starts to slow down, the silage in the diet will be reduced and replaced with straw. This will increase their meal intake.

By early March, it is hoped they will be coming close to ad-lib feeding.

Ewes

Doubles and triplets are now housed while ewe lambs and single bearing ewes remain outside. The next time these ewes are dry they will be housed too.

Doubles are currently on 0.4kg/head/day and they will move to 0.5kg/head/day soon. The triplets are on 0.6kg/head/day, receiving 0.3kg twice daily.

All ewes received their footvax vaccine this week to prevent against foot issues and, in 10 days, they will be receiving their Heptavac vaccine.

Grass

A grass cover was completed today (Friday). The average farm cover is now at 545kg DM/ha with a modest growth rate of 16kg DM/ha/day being recorded.

For now, grazing is off limits though as ground is extremely wet. With more rain forecast for the weekend and next week, its looking like there will be no cattle out until near March.

Farm manager Shaun Diver does not expect to be under too much pressure housing-wise until early March though. At that stage calves will have to go out but there will be plenty at three and four weeks of age so they should be strong enough.