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Late July is a good time to weigh store cattle and calves to monitor performance at grass from turnout. The task can be combined with worming, or vaccinating against respiratory diseases.
Having an accurate weight to work with will help to determine if animals are on track to meet target sale or housing weights this autumn.
Where cattle will be killed off grass in September or October, animals should be no more than 50kg to 80kg from target slaughter weight by the end of July.
Stores grazing well-managed swards should be averaging around 1kg/day of liveweight gain from grass.
For spring-born calves, weight gain whilst on the cow should be at least 1.2kg/day. Assuming an average birth weight of 45kg for a calf born on 1 March, calves will be around 150 days old by the end of July.
These calves should weigh in the region of 230kg to 250kg towards the end of July. If calves continue to perform at the outlined level, weight gain will be around 320kg to 350kg when weaned in October.
If weight gain is below target, ensuring worming is up to date and introducing a creep feeder will help boost performance over the remainder of the grazing season.
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