It was with pleasure that we finally watched out house tank overflow during heavy rain. For April we received 145.5 mls, enough to kick the grass off. It's turned the grass green and visually things don't look bad.
The consequence is that the grass is not high in DM and although it might look good, there is no guts in the grass and they munch through quickly what is given to them. So whilst we had good animal weights at the begining of April, we have struggled to maintain them through to the end of April, after the rain. Our farm pasture cover as at 30th April was fairly tight at 1450 kgDM/ha, but reassuringly we have had less before. To get through though we have used more silage, been fed out to all the dairy stock. Updating Farmax, things will be tight and it will be a case of selling off stock and prioritising mobs around blocks as pasture allows.
The rain is currently continuing, with 16 mls yesterday, mainly arriving after 5pm. More rain today from lunchtime onwards. After having all this dry weather, you suddenly have all these tasks which would be so much better to do in the dry rather than the wet.
Last week was focused on weighing and transferring dairy weaners and R2s. All mobs weighed, R2s trucked home and a new mob of R1s arrived. Our weights are back about 10 - 15 kgs on our targets, depending on mobs. All the mobs are now settling down into their winter rotations to allow some pasture growth to create a feed wedge whilst the soil temps still remain warm.
Facial Ezcema still being high at 50,000 on home block and 30,000 on other block. All R1 heifers are still protected by a Time Capsule through to 20th May. We seem to be higher than other blocks sampled through our vets in the Northern Waikato area.
Our focus has been a little on repairs and maintenance - repairing some of our fences in our back sheep country, blocking goat holes, replacing flood gates, replacing staples and any broken wires. On our other block, focus has been on tracks and crossings, making sure that we can access main parts of the farm safely and filling up gateways.
At the end of the month we look forward to shearing and scanning. When taking the rams out of the ewes, the ewe condition seems to have been maintained through tupping, so fingers crossed that scanning results will be positive.
