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Over the past seven days 35mm of rain fell on Tullamore Farm, meaning housing has had to crank up a gear.
Until Tuesday, 30 dry cows were being fed silage via a round feeder, which was working well and causing minimal damage. These cows have now been housed and the only stock left outdoors are 15 in-calf heifers, ewes, rams and nine lambs.
The in-calf heifers will be housed this weekend, while the ewes will continue to graze off some wetter paddocks into december. Hoggets may graze some of the redstart/interval forage crop depending on how fast the weanling heifers move through it.
Redstart grazing commences
Forty-three heifers started to graze 18 acres of redstart on Tuesday. Heifers will on/off graze the redstart for a few days to prevent bloat and ease them into their new diet. They will also get silage and a mineral bolus this week.
So far utilisation has been excellent. The heifers weighed 302kg on average, with the heaviest heifer being a Simmental cross by AHC weighing 390kg. Heifers have gained 1.11 kg/day since birth and are currently ahead of target weights for breeding next May.
The farm's bull calves are all housed and are currently being fed 72DMD silage and 3kg of weanling ration. Bull calves were weighed last week and weighed 360kg on average – a gain of 1.33kg/day since birth. The heaviest calf is a February-born QCD calf weighing 470kg.
Cow condition scoring
Cows will be condition scored at the end of this week and penned accordingly. On visual assessment they look fine, but there are some first calving heifers which will need extra feeding over the winter months to bring them up to target body condition scores.
Ram activity has slowed down in the last few days, with rams being swapped with different groups and raddle has been changed. Nine lambs were slaughtered this week, leaving 11 lambs from the 2018 crop.
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