Growth is holding well at 35kg DM/ha/day and still exceeds demand, which is just 31kg DM/ha/day.

This is why the farm has maintained quite a high average farm cover of 980kg DM/ha.

At the same time, grazing is becoming increasingly difficult. The farm received a lot of rain last weekend and early this week and ground conditions for cattle deteriorated quickly.

As a result, a decision was made to speed up weaning.

Weaning

The last of the bulls were weaned at the weekend and the last of the heifers were weaned on Tuesday morning.

Both bulls and heifers have received an ivermectin-based injection within the last month because they were coughing.

In terms of grass and land management, the decision to take the cows off the land and let the weanlings graze the heavy covers has worked extremely well.

The weaned cows are now being fed hay to aid with drying off. Once dried off, cows will either remain indoors and the silage pit will be opened or, if the weather improves and land soaks, they may go outdoors to clean off some heavy covers prior to closing.

This year’s first-calved heifers (15) would be the first to go back out.

Ration

Bull weanlings are being fed 2kg/head/day of ration at grass and grazing is going well. They are being moved every two to three days.

Heifer calves are on 1kg/head/day.

The last of the beef heifers (five) will go next week. They are currently on 3.5kg/head/day of ration and good-quality baled silage.

Four heifers were slaughtered this week. They averaged 282kg and made €1,050/head on average.

Some of the cull cows will be slaughtered within the next two weeks. They are on 5kg/head/day of concentrates and good-quality silage. They look to be doing an excellent thrive.

Breeding

The ewes have been split into their groups ahead of breeding. This year, the farm will implement single-sire mating.

While it may not be the most practical or labour-efficient, it is being performed in conjunction with Sheep Ireland to allow more information to be gathered on the ewe flock and the rams.

Breeding will commence on Monday for lambing on St Patrick's Day.

Rams have received a full health and fitness check prior to breeding.

Flushing has gone well and ewes are in good order. They received a winter dip last week.

The cost of the dipping came to €1.70 including VAT and with dip supplied.

There is 13 lambs left from this season and they will be slaughtered next week. One ewe that received e-coli mastitis will be culled with these.