AI has finished and the Limousin bull is with the cows to cover any repeats. As the calves are out by day , the cows are cycling very well. The aim is to keep the calving period compact to a maximum 12 weeks, the ultimate target is 9 weeks so the he bull will be removed on 17 March. Cows are in very good condition eating 70+ DMD silage. 8 heifers have been retained for breeding and will be calving at 2 years of age in October. There current average weight is 460kgs
There is a big demand for grass on the farm at 20kgs DM and this is before the cows go out with a demand of 34kg DM Store cattle are out full-time grazing 0.25ha/day and the autumn born calves are outdoors by day only. 2/3 of the store cattle being sold to allow for cows to go to grass. Ground conditions are holding up well. The store cattle are given a daily allocation of grass before being moved the following day . This is minimising poaching and excellent graze outs to 4cm are being achieved . This will facilitate tillering and an excellent quality re-growths. Heavier sections of the farm are being skipped and will be grazed when ground conditions improve further. Lower covers are been grazed currently and the silage ground will be grazed off in the next 2 weeks .
The silage ground will be fertilised and closed for silage by the end of the month. The soil fertility is excellent with the majority of the farm at index 3 and 4 for both P & K. As a result, 3000 gal/acre of slurry will be applied and topped up with 1.5bags/acre of protected urea for silage. In a year of extraordinary fertiliser prices and that fact that the 80% of farm is at index 3- only maintenance P & K is required. Protected urea will be used throughout the year and a ½ of protected urea/acre was spread over all the grassland area on March 4th . Protected urea is cheaper per kg than other blends and is safer for the environment.
