With beef farming, sucklers in particularly, typically seen in what would be classed as heavier or poorer land, getting to remain at grass until this stage of the year is an achievement for some, especially owing to a consistently high water table all summer since the weather broke in June.

With the majority of adult cattle now indoors, it is likely that any remaining grazing activity will be limited to lighter cattle or sheep. Average farm covers on drystock farms measuring grass is currently sitting at 729KG DM/ha, which is too high to consider closing up ground just yet.

Lighter stock, provided they are not doing damage and their performance is not being compromised, should remain at grass until this figure is closer to 600kg DM/ha. Where possible, any meal feeding should take place on a hardcore road or in a concrete yard to limit damage to paddocks.

Utilisation is still reportedly poor, even with farmers grazing with calves or sheep, so strip grazing may be required to increase utilisation and leave a clean base for regrowth over the winter.

Farmers

Stephen Frend – Newford Herd, Co Galway

Some of the lower lying ground running along the river is flooded, but the remaining ground is in fairly good order with all youngstock remaining at grass.

Weanlings and in-calf heifers seem very content and are doing minimal damage, being moved on every two to three days. There’s probably a month’s worth of grass ahead of these if we can keep them out with ground conditions.

Finishing bullocks are in the last two weeks and are on 5-6kg of meal with good quality silage. Only five heifers for slaughter remain, with both the heifers and bullocks averaging 620kg liveweight.

Farm cover across the home farm and the out blocks is probably close to 700kg DM/ha with 50% of the farm now closed off for the winter.

System Suckler to beef

Soil Type Variable

Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 950

Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 17

Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 15

William Treacy – Dundalk, Co Louth

We got about half of our calves weaned outdoors, but had to wean the second half indoors due to the wet weather. In a year like this I’m extremely glad to be vaccinating for pneumonia with the mild conditions.

We’d hope to get weanlings back out at grass in the near future as we still have a lot of grass remaining on farm.

We’ve been doing a bit of zero-grazing to get cover off ground, but this has been temporarily paused with the wet conditions. When conditions allow, we are feeding the grass to all types of stock indoors.

Most of the dung went out two weeks ago, with a small amount left to spread at the weekend hopefully. I target hilly ground that doesn’t usually get slurry with the dung.

System Suckler to beef

Soil Type Free draining

Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 793

Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 28

Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 15

Shaun Diver – Tullamore Farm, Co Offaly

We had some of the heaviest rain I have ever seen hit the farm here on Monday, which has really softened ground. The only cattle that remain out are 10 in-calf heifers for keeping.

Cattle had been wasting a lot of grass before housing, a combination of heavy covers and wet weather. Heifer calves have now been weaned, and are due their second shot for pneumonia. Bulls and heifers have received an injectable ivermectin.

Some ground remains too wet to be grazed, even by the ewe flock, so I may be forced to graze some of the re-growths. I don’t want to pinch ewes at this time of the year when breeding is underway.

Rams went out 10 days ago, with approximately 50% of the ewes tupped so far.

System Suckler to beef

Soil Type Variable

Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 770

Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 28

Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 12