Jim and Graine Dwyer thinks about insulation

The temperatures today are 10C compared to -12C two weeks ago. This has been the big challenge of the end of 2010. We survived very well until we had -15C two nights in a row and once again our water pumps froze and burst, as they had last January. This means we are going to have to be more conscious of better insulation on all our water installations.

The animals have coped well with the low temperatures. They have consumed more food, but because we did not have a lot of rain they have survived well outdoors. The pad is working well this year as it is stocked at a lower level, unlike last year when we had more animals on it.

We had to take the cows off the fodder beet in the extreme cold weather as it was too frozen to eat, but they are back on it again now and it does not seem to have been damaged too much by the frost. The kale crops seem to have lost a certain amount of feed value due to the low temperatures, but with good round bale silage all along the side of the crop, the animals are still performing very well. Our priority now is to monitor cow condition score. This we are doing every two weeks, moving cows from one group to another as their condition score dictates.

For us this is the month of vaccinations. As we get near calving we vaccinate for BVD, salmonella, IBR and rotavirus. It is also the month for looking back on our KPIs for last year, in particular our financial performance. This we do together with our farm discussion group and it can be quiet sobering at times when you see how good some other members of the group have performed, but this then becomes our challenge for the year ahead.

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