The tough springs of 2013 and 2018, along with the washout summer of 2012, all feature highly in the farming practice memory bank and those memories have been dipped into more often than I’d like over the last month.

Those lessons learned the hard way mean conditions are managed as they occur rather than sticking to a plan regardless.

That, combined with focusing on what I can control, has made the last three weeks tolerable but still unwelcome.

Unlike the cold springs of 2013 and 2018, at least grass has grown. A few hours of sunshine on a Friday afternoon lifted the spirits before the rain and mist returned over the weekend.

That bit of sun was welcome.

A few days prior, one of the driest paddocks in the place had pools of water on it.

This year has probably been the most varied when it comes to dipping into the grazing bag of tricks.

At one point the cows and calves had access to four paddocks to give them options for shelter from a few different angles, but they still didn’t settle. Grazing demand was eased at home by getting some cows off to the out farm.

To get grass under control, they’ll remain in small groups until the bull goes out with them there.

Heifers

In comparison to the cows, the replacement heifers have seen their grazing routine chopped and changed quite a bit. A month out from breeding, and with the exception of three who I let out at the weekend, all are still indoors but should be out by the weekend.

When they went out to grass in early February, I knew some would be coming back in, but I didn’t expect it to be all of them or for this long. Half were housed before the rain at the start of March and the rest came back in around St Patrick’s Day.

Body condition score is good across the group, and any who were a bit behind the average got a second rumen fluke dose late last month. Despite being in for the last month, they’ve still had three to six weeks at grass already in February and March so that, and a rising plane of nutrition, should stand to them.

What I’ve noticed in the past is the cows that calved later and hit grass straight away tended to come into heat relatively fast, so hopefully that will be replicated with the heifers.

No frills

There’s a no frills breeding policy across cows or heifers, either they go in calf or they don’t.

AI will probably begin at a similar time as the bull goes in with the heifers and, with the odd exception, it looks like I’ll be repeating the one straw and done system on any cow that might be viewed as a potential cull. It worked well last year and simplified the workload.

No frills could equally apply to feeding and perhaps that has an influence on breeding too. With margins tight in sucklers, I can’t justify feeding ration to cows or replacement heifers.

In a spring like this it has kept costs under control because there’s no extra draw on ration, as the only ones getting it are the young bulls.

Where it feeds into breeding is that all cows are treated the same, but some thrive better on what the farm can produce than others. If some cows need extra inputs to function and others don’t, which makes more sense to retain in the long term?