The average birth date of calves on the THRIVE programme farms is around 20 March. Therefore, these calves are coming on for 12 weeks old at this stage.

The majority are weaned a fortnight if not more in some cases. However, meal feeding continues. There is always a debate as to whether or not meal feeding should cease for the summer months.

There are no hard and fast rules on this one and is very much farm-specific. Last year, on the Irish Farmers Journal THRIVE demonstration farm in Cashel, Co Tipperary, meal feeding to calves was stopped in mid-June.

Farmer John Hally felt it affected the thrive of the calves for the remainder of the summer compared with the previous year when meal feeding was continued.

Housing weights for last year’s calves was around 20kg lighter than the previous year. However, last year’s calves had much poorer autumn grazing conditions to contend with, as well as a slightly later average birth date, so it is hard to compare the two.

Meal feeding to calves just off milk on the THRIVE demo farm. Older batches of calves are fed 1kg/head once a day.

Grazing quality

Where the quality of grass in front of calves is good and grazing conditions are favourable, then there is no reason why a grass-only diet shouldn’t be sufficient.

For this to be successful, the most important thing is to consistently graze leafy swards. If calves are spending even four or five days of a 21-day rotation on grass that is too strong or pushing them to graze out swards, it will have a negative effect on daily liveweight gains.

Ideally, there should be a leader-follower system in place where some other non-priority stock class come in and graze out after calves. This can be difficult to achieve on farms with only dairy-calf-to-beef cattle as all groups of stock are priority.

Clean out

Where it can work well is on farms with autumn-calving cows or dried off ewes on the farm that can come in and clean it out after the calves have had the best of it.

This year, some of the programme farms are going to cut out meal for late June, July and into August to see how they get on.

Every kilo of meal being fed is reducing their grass intake by about 1kg. At a cost of around 25c/kg concentrate versus around 8c/kg of grass, even cutting out meal feeding for a 75-day period there is a saving of €12.75/calf to be made.

Where calves are meeting growth rate targets and grass quality is good, then meal feeding can be withdrawn for the summer months.

When to feed

Weighing calves to see if they are hitting weight targets is the only way to know if you can afford to cut meal feeding.

If the oldest batch of calves is on target and grass quality is good, then consider pulling meal feeding for the summer months. However, be prepared to start feeding again once the weather conditions deteriorate.

A feeding rate of 1kg/head is sufficient for calves in the first season at grass.

Where calves are behind target or later-born calves that could do with extra help, meal feeding should be continue.