Farmer Focus: All hands on deck for spring block-calving

Our official start date for calving is 4 February, and 50% of the herd had calved by 12 February, including 75 heifers, so we have been occupied.

At 1 March, 328 cows and heifers had calved, and we are rearing about 115 Friesian heifer calves from this year, along with the new beef enterprise.

See also: How an Irish farmer keeps his spring-calving system on track

About the author

Eurig Jenkins

The Jenkins family are spring block-calvers near Lampeter, west Wales. Eurig oversees the management of 430 New Zealand Friesians, supplying First Milk. Stocking rates are up to 4.4 cows/ha in the summer. Calving lasts nine weeks and youngstock are wintered on deferred grazing.

Contact:

Email: Eurigj@hotmail.com

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We have now started offloading calves in the orange markets (TB restricted), with dairy-bred making no difference in price to conventional markets, yet our Belgian Blue-crosses on some lots are up to 50% cheaper.

It’s a bit of a hit, as money in the bank seems to be very tight at the moment, but we thought that keeping big numbers of calves would only distract us from our main objective of milk production.

My brother Irfon broke a bone in his hand in mid-February, and he literally needed a helping hand (pardon the pun).

Our youngest employee, Rigby, stepped up and spent more time with calves than normal.

However, more power was needed to drag the new milk feeder, and it arrived two days later in the form of a new Honda 520 ATV.

It’s been given the stamp of approval by my two sons, back home for half-term. 

Having three people in the parlour in the afternoon, with the help of the new Milktech automatic cluster removers (ACRs), means that more than 300 cows an hour is now the output we prefer.

The ACRs are yet to be calibrated properly, as colostrum milk is also added to the running total, and the calves take milk when we’re short, so it’s nearly impossible to work out the total litres produced compared with the ticket the lorry leaves. 

Cows grazed for nine days in February, then were rehoused for a good week as we had a wet tail end to the month; they went back out in March.

We did manage to spread some slurry two days after the closed period, in ideal conditions, which should hopefully see us right now till summer. However, rightly or wrongly, the fertiliser is still keeping dry in the shed.

People who know me know I am not religious, but I do pray for good weather in March and thank all the team for their effort over the past month.