Just a quick post. It's been a wet February and it looks to be a cold AND wet March. Every break is back fenced with cows grazing 3-4 hours during the day then stood on silage and grazed on a smaller area at night. The idea being, sending them out full, to the night break, encourages less time standing and trampling, and more time lying down.
Hardcore grazing (don't worry we brought them back in after a couple of hours!)
Despite all this calving is coming to an end. 75% of the herd have calved with only one vet callout to a backwards breach calf. I expect another 10% in the next fortnight, with the final 15% strung out until the end of April. If we hit target numbers for the season before then, there may be scope to sell all the April calvers and have a break before service starts. It's nice to have dreams!
Staff are in good spirits with all our replacement heifer calves now on once a day feeding. Any calf born from now onwards will be sold at 10 days old.
R2s happy on baleage and grass
As you can see above, this year our R2s are wintered on grass and bales. We've seen our friends do this for years and always wanted to give it a go. It turns out to be the perfect year to start, as the ground has been so wet that without the bales, they would have struggled to utilise the heavy deferred grass covers.
I hope you're all coping with the weather and still managing to keep grazing!
