Newford Farm May/June 2025 Update
Newford Farm Notes (Week beginning 19/05/2025)
General Detail
- The breeding season started on Monday the 21st of April and 100% AI is being used on the farm again in 2025.
- There are 77 mature cows and 31 maiden heifers for breeding this year on the farm
- Within the first three weeks of breeding , 72 of the mature cows put forward for breeding were inseminated (94% of the herd )
- Up to Monday the 19th of May, 76 cows or 98% of the herd had been inseminated (28 days)
- The early turnout of the cows in February and the excellent weather we are experiencing for the last 3 weeks has played a major role on cows coming into heat
- One cow which was an early calver and has not cycled yet will be checked out by the vet this week
- The breeding season will last for 10 weeks and finish on the 30th
- The cows are batched into two groups (38 per group +/-) for the breeding season and a teaser bull is running with each group
- Teaser bulls have been fitted with Moocall heat detection technology along with a chin ball harness for marking the cows
Figure 1: Teaser bull pictured with MooCall collar
- Cows have also been tail painted yellow for the first round of breeding. This is being changed to blue for the second breeding cycle.
- Once a day AI is being used and cows are being inseminated at midday each day.
- If a cow is inseminated at 12 noon and she is still showing signs of standing heat again that evening, that same cow will be AI’d again the next day (12 noon).
Replacement Heifers
- There are 31 replacement heifers for breeding and they were synchronised on the 10th of April and AI’d on Friday the 18th April ( 8 day synchronisation programme)
- To-date there have being 8 repeats (75% holding). Breeding will only last for 6 weeks
Figure 2: Replacement heifers with tail paint
Grassland
- Utilisation of all paddocks is excellent at the moment with all paddocks been grazed out well
- The farm cover on the farm this week is 795 Kg/DM/ha and the soil moisture deficits in Roscommon is 54 mm ( 20th May) , so growth will / has started to slow up , so hopefully the rain fall due this week will fall and prevent any signs of a drought as some fields on the farm are beginning to turn slightly brown
- 13 acres were taken for surplus bales as covers had exceeded over 1800 Kg and the farm continuous to turn in stock into pre-grazing grass covers of roughly 1,300 to 1,400 kg DM /ha
- First cut silage was taken of the out farm (Neilan’s 14th May ) and 2,000 to 2,500 gals of cattle slurry will spread first per acre follow by a week later of one bag of 18-6-12 and one bag of 46% protective Urea per acre for a second cut
Beef animals
- All the beef bullocks were weighed on the 30th of April
- The average weight of the (46) bullocks was 435 kg
- Their average daily gain since turnout on the 3rd of March to 30th April (58 days) was 0.78 kg per day. Their turnout weight was 390 kg
Figure 3: Weighing details of bullocks
