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Last week’s ex-hurricane conditions across the country called a halt to grazing on many farms. With another storm forecast for this weekend which will be accompanied by more rain, this could finish grazing for 2017 for the remaining dryer farms.
For farmers who have grass left, options include taking in some ewes for grazing over the next six weeks. If this option is chosen, you need to be careful not to allow access to the whole farm and still stick to a closing plan. Remember to fill out all necessary documentation when taking in sheep to graze. Have a clear plan of when you want sheep on the farm and more importantly when you want them taken off.
Due to mild conditions over the past two weeks, paddocks that have been closed since early October have really greened up again and some have decent covers already.
The temptation is that if dry weather comes, weanlings are turned back out to steal an extra two weeks at grass. Don’t give in to this temptation; this grass will be worth far more in spring when trying to get weanlings out early. Finishing and store cattle are better off housed at this stage.
Matthew Murphy from the Newford herd outlined weight gains in steers and heifers for the past two months at the beef conference.
Supplemented cattle receiving 5kg concentrate at grass have performed very well, gaining over 1kg day since being supplemented, while unsupplemented cattle have gained around .5 kg/day since early August.
This is probably due to weather conditions and energy values in grass decreasing and demonstrate the merits of supplementing at pasture at this time of year.
Cavan
System suckler to weanling
Soil type heavy
The continuous poor weather conditions have left grazing very difficult. I had to house all cows and calves for a period last week as ground deteriorated rapidly and there was a lot of poaching starting to take place. All stock are back out now and I am trying to keep them moving quickly through paddocks to minimise damage. They are currently on 12-hour blocks. I vaccinated all weanlings for IBR and pneumonia this week as I had a few calves that took bits of chills with the changeable weather.
Cows are currently being supplemented with high-mag licks as a prevention against grass tetany and I will start to wean them in the next few weeks.
A new reseed I put in is doing very well but with the continued wet weather it’s going to be difficult to get it grazed out. I am meal-feeding a group of heifers and they are doing very well. I got my silage analysed last week and thankfully the results came back very good.
Kerry
System suckler to weanling
Soil type heavy
I have housed half of my cows for weaning. Land got very wet here in the last month and poaching is an issue. I’m trying to keep the other half of my cows out as long as possible by giving a daily allowance of grass and back fencing to avoid excessive damage.
I will castrate most of my weanling bulls as they are not heavy enough to push through to slaughter under 16 months. I will slaughter a few of the heaviest a bulls just to try out the system.
Heifers are inside for finishing on 6kg of ration and good-quality silage. I am waiting on my silage test results but hoping to be somewhere near 70% DMD. I am closing up paddocks in rotation now for the spring. I will keep the dairy bred calves out as late as possible on grass with 2kg of ration but will still have 60% of ground closed by early November.
Tullamore Farm
System suckler to finish
Soil type mixed
We grew 35kg/DM over the past seven days. We currently have 90 cows housed as part of the weaning process and this has reduced our demand to 23kg/DM/day. One hundred and seventy ewes are grazing recently reseeded swards. We’re lucky to have them as I don’t think I would be able to graze this with cattle at the moment.
With ground conditions deteriorating, cows will remain housed. We have 28% of our grazing area closed with a target of 66% closed by 1 November and 100% closed by 22 November. Weather may bring this date forward. Fifty cows will start grazing 10 acres of kale next week. They will also receive two mineral boluses before being turned back out. Calves were vaccinated for pneumonia and dosed with an avermectin-based product prior to weaning. Weanlings were weighed on 6 October and male calves weighed 302kg and have gained 1.22kg/day since birth. Heifer calves weighed 276kg and have gained 1.11kg/day since birth. Cow weight averaged 590kg. Dairy calves weighed 202kg and have gained .77kg/day since birth.
Offaly
System suckler to finish
Soil type dry
Autumn calving has gone well, with only one casualty to report. All calves on the ground are very content outdoors but I will house all cows and calves as I want to close up more ground for the spring and begin my breeding season.
I have gone almost 100% AI and it works well with cows cycling while housed. I hope to incorporate more Simmental into the herd, bringing more size into cows within the herd with scope to increase the carcase weights of progeny going forward.
Silage quality is paramount to keep cows cycling and I had a large amount of empty cows last year which I had to cull unfortunately. I’ve sent off blood samples and will bolus accordingly if cows are lacking anything.
Similarly, I took silage samples earlier in the week and hopefully the quality will be good enough to meet the cows’ feed requirements over the winter months. I also have peas and barley which will be fed to stores and younger stock depending on my silage quality.
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