Grass has exploded out of the ground again after the rain and heat over this side of the country this month. We will have to take out some baled silage again next week if we get a weather window.

We blanket spread the whole farm with 23 units of protected urea last week so we will leave it grow out for a few more days before cutting. We will blanket spread the farm again after cutting this silage, before the fertiliser deadline of 15 September.

We had one week during the summer when we had to supplement the cows with baled silage but they have eaten very little silage in total

This will probably be the last of the silage for the year but it has been an exceptional year for grass overall.

We had one week during the summer when we had to supplement the cows with baled silage but they have eaten very little silage in total since calving last spring and hopefully with the build-up of grass over the last week, we can keep the minimum amount of silage and concentrate in for the rest of the lactation.

We had a good scan with the cows last week, with 7% empty after an extended 12-week breeding season. We will probably increase this to 12% with some voluntary culling.

Disappointing

The heifers were a little more disappointing with an empty rate of 8% but overall we have enough in-calf to meet all our targets for next year and definitely enough to keep us busy next spring.

We will put a yellow tape on these cull cows this week to mark them for once-a-day milking for the next two months.

We will then dry them off early in the last grazing rotation. This will help to reduce demand and hopefully extend grazing well into the autumn without affecting next spring’s grass.

We are probably finished with grass silage for the season as we should be able to let the rest build up into the autumn.

We will, however, have more maize silage to harvest in a month or so.

The maize on the heifer farm will hopefully be left as a surplus, in storage as a buffer against a rainy day

We will put some of this in a small indoor pit in the home yard and we might put more in another indoor pit on the heifer farm.

We will feed the home pit to the milking cows this autumn to again help to stretch out the last rotation further.

The maize on the heifer farm will hopefully be left as a surplus, in storage as a buffer against a rainy day.

We brought some cows out to the Iverk Show in Piltown, Co Kilkenny, last weekend. The show was a great success with great weather and a huge crowd. It’s great to get out with some of the cows each year and show people the type of cow we are milking on the farm.

Rustic presentation

The presentation of our cows is a little more rustic than the professional efforts of our colleagues in the Holstein section of the show, but the average farmer walking around the show is probably a bit more comfortable with that type of cow than the daunting prospect of trying to get the best out of one of the elite high-performance cows at the other side of the house.

One of our cows managed to bring home the first prize in the senior British Friesian cow class, with our good friend Pat Cleary bringing home the top prize in the milking heifer class.

Michael Spillane won the bull calf class but the highlight for all of the British Friesian show team was eight-year-old Jo Queally who led her bull calf Shamrock to a well-deserved second place in the bull calf class, showing all of the older handlers how it’s done.