It's nature I'm afraid, and while life is pretty close to perfect here in Leitrim, we just can't control the weather. We have every cow that calved from 1st march onwards let out as they calved - calves got coats for a week or two to protect from the cold and wet. But anything born before that didn't get the opportunity to get out. It's not the first year for it to happen, but thankfully we are better prepared for it this year than other years with a shed full of hay and loads of bales of silage left over.
We are no different to most other parts of the country this year with regard to temperature and growth. It has meant that regrowth since the 1st of March has been almost non-existent with the exception of the last 5 days where things have started to grow. I was in Fermanagh during the week and speaking to farmers, they are in a worse position to us being that most have no animals out at all.
There are 2 main differences between here and other parts of the country. One is the depth of soil and the other is the amount of rain that we get. We have very shallow soil which means that it is very heavy. On top of that, we are just in the path of a lot of rain - people say that it falls very uneven across the country, but it always seems to fall on us. But we thrive in situations where others suffer such as the dry spell last spring or summer 2018 - we had double the production in these times, so it was wise to make extra feed as we knew that we would need it. This year, spring wasn't exceptionally cold, but the average temperature was low enough to see very little grass growth and combined with the amount of rain that we saw, it meant that it wasn't feasible to let all cattle out. Grass is still scarce enough so we will hold on to them for another week to let it build. Stronger calves are happy and healthy in the creep areas, albeit they are supplemented with a small bit of meal to keep them going, but it will pay for itself.
Following what other lads from different parts of the country have posted here in the last 8 weeks, a lot of people were supplementing cattle that were out with silage or meal. The amount of rain that we have seen since early april has left ground so wet that it would be impossible to do supplementary feeding outdoors without doing a lot of damage.
60 miles away on the farm in Galway is a very different story. Everything is out on grass 4 weeks ago tomorrow. Supplies of grass are holding up well for younger cattle. Cows and calves are tight enough for grass but ground conditions are still quite dry and cows are pretty content.
We could sell some cattle at home, but we have already made cuts this year to meet BEAM targets, so we will trudge on and hope that we can get a few more weeks as good as this one. There will be very little silage made in this county before June 20th and the bulk of it that would normally come before the end of June will not come in until mid July.