Grass supplies are getting very tight on Tullamore Farm according to farm manager Shaun Diver. Looking at Pasturebase after this week’s grass walk, the farm has 14 days of grass ahead of stock. Shaun says the farm is “going to need every bit of it".

Without doubt growth has been very good for the last seven days coming in at an average growth rate of 96kg DM/ha/day. However, it is a real struggle to get grass built up ahead of stock. Appetites appear to be quite high at present due to the cooler weather and this demand is rising every day as grass becomes a bigger part of the calves’ diets.

The current average farm cover is at 718kg DM/ha. At this time of the year, with a demand of 53kg DM/ha/day and a target days ahead figure of 14, the average cover is slightly below where it needs to be (53kg DM/ha/day x 14 days ahead = 742kg DM/ha target). It certainly wouldn’t want to go below 700kg DM/ha.

Growth will start slowing from mid-summer onwards so more ground will have to come back into the rotation to lower the demand per hectare.

As things stand, second-cut silage will be cut around the end of June, but it will be mid-July before it's fit for grazing. Until then, there certainly won’t be any surpluses taken out.

To push growth and build covers as much as possible, the farm is getting a top-up of fertiliser every few weeks. Forty acres received one bag per acre of Pasture Sward (27 units N/ac) last week and another 10ac will get a bag of CAN (27 units N/ac) before the weekend.

Breeding

Breeding is beginning to slow down now. The stock bull was turned out with the 41 maiden heifers last Saturday. This whole group was synchronised in late April, received their first AI on 3 May and any repeats received an AI for a second time on the weekend of the 24 May. The stock bull is being used to serve any heifers that will have repeated twice, but according to Shaun “there has only been two or three".

This stock bull will be taken out of the heifer group next week and turned out with the group of late calvers. To date, all cows in the early-calving group have gone past their second round of AI at least, while the majority of cows in the late group have received their first AI at least. Turning out the stock bull with the late calvers will reduce the workload of AI when waiting for only a handful of cows to come into heat.

Beef bulls and sheep

Three under 16-month bulls were sold last Friday and another load of seven or eight will be going again this Friday.

In the sheep flock, all lambs have now received an application of Clik to prevent against fly-strike. All going well, the first weighing will take place in two weeks and hopefully there will be lambs near fit for slaughter.

Eighty sheep were shorn earlier in the week and the rest will be shorn this weekend, weather permitting.