Cows housed based on body condition on NISBP farms

The vast majority of cattle have been housed on the programme farms. Some of the farms have extremely dry land and are able to hold some lighter cattle out on grass to clean off the remaining heavy covers. Once removed, these cattle will be housed and moved on to a silage diet.

Cows have been grouped together at housing based on body condition to make it easier to feed cows based on their requirement. If cows are housed without grouping them based on condition, it becomes impossible to alter body condition as overfat cows cannot have silage restricted, while thin cows cannot be offered meal.

Once cows reach body condition scores of 2.5 to 3.0, they can be regrouped again. This will make it easier to feed cows in the final eight to nine weeks before calving when nutritional requirement increases.

Cattle have been clipped on some farms. Where shed ventilation is poor, clipping is deemed as very important to prevent cattle from overheating and sweating during the day. With cold nights, these cattle would be at risk of developing pneumonia if they were not clipped.

Clipping helps to prevent cattle being affected by lice. All cattle have now been treated for biting and sucking lice as well as worms at housing. Fluke treatment will be carried out in due time.

Finishing cattle have been housed since September on a number of farms and performance has been good to date. The programme farmers are weighing these cattle on a four to six week basis to monitor performance. This leaves farmers better informed as to the best time to sell cattle based on the level of daily carcase gain compared to feed costs.