THE BIRDS THAT SHAKE THE BARLEY
ond application of fertiliser last week, bringing it up to a total of 140 units N per acre.
At the moment, it looks clean from a disease point of view and has a good colour.
If it gets a bit of warmth and sunshine, I’d say it’s ready to take off.
It was sprayed for weeds in the autumn but, as soon as the weather settles, we will put a good fungicide spray on it. Hopefully that will be done this week.
We are halfway through the sales of our beef heifers. The weights are holding up around 365kg on average, with a good fat cover, mainly 4s.
A good few of the heifers left are younger and lighter but will still be finished in the next month out of shed so that will bring the average down a bit.
One of the reasons we finish them out of the shed is that it simplifies our system insofar as the only animals we have out grazing are cows and calves, stock bulls and replacement heifers.
I found over the years it was a case of swings and roundabouts.
We used to let these heifers out to graze and finish them off grass at the back end of the year. But, generally what happened, we had heavier heifers and were getting less per kilo for them at that time.
I think we are doing just as well by sending them to the factory at lighter weights and hopefully a better price per kg.
A job we will do in the next couple of weeks is wean the calves off the cull cows and the empty cows, with a view to having the cull cows finished by the end of May/early June.
Also a bit of good news last week — our cow that was inconclusive in the herd test went clear on her re-test.
Robin Talbot farms in partnership with his mother Pam and wife Ann in Ballacolla, Co Laois