It has been another busy week on Tullamore Farm with 24 cows now calved. We had one set of ZAG twin heifer calves this week which has made up a little for the disappointment of losing three calves out of heifers. One post-mortem has come back with nothing of concern showing up, except a positive result for Q Fever in one of the purchased heifers that had a dead calf. Our vet Donal Lynch hasn’t any concerns with the post mortem analysis.There was a c-section on Saturday last with a second calving cow. The calf was presented backways and the cow didn’t open up properly so the calf had to be delivered via c-section.

There are 18 cows and calves outside grazing around the sheds. Once calves are sucking well and the farm staff are happy that everything is good to go, cows and calves are turned out. Shed space is pretty tight and there are no creeps available to put cows back on slats and while calves lie in a creep area.

Last year we were able to use a large round-roofed straw shed for cows and calves after calving, but this year the sheep have occupied this space and cows and calves have went straight out from the calving shed. Cows have access to some silage in the paddock along with 2kg of concentrates topped with 60mg of sweetened Cal-Mag daily.

Tetany

Cows also have access to high-Mg licks. Given the issues we had with tetany last year we are looking into giving a bolus to cows once they move up to the out-farm but the problem is the short period of cover that a bolus gives. We had issues with tetany in May last year. One hundred and twenty acres of the driest parts of the farm were spread with 35 units UREA/acre on Saturday 17 February. This was probably seven to 10 days behind but ground conditions determined that. Soil temperatures this week are around 5-6°C and hopefully we will see some response from this fertiliser soon.

Fifty-nine dairy heifers were turned out on grass on Monday. These heifers had been grazing kale during the winter months and are now grazing some of the paddocks that was closed up last October. One heifer has been housed with suspected meningitis and is receiving on going treatment indoors. Triplets will start on 0.4kg/day of a high-protein ration this week while twins will start on 0.2kg/day.