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My autumn-calving cows were pregnancy-scanned on 4 February and I was delighted with the results.
I served 48 cows from October to Christmas time and scanning confirmed that 44 cows are settled in-calf. Included in this are eight homebred heifers which are of Limousin breeding.
Based on scanning results, the autumn herd should be calving in a fairly tight period next August and September.
Compact calving is ideal for me as it makes cows and calves much easier to manage for indoor feeding and inseminating, as well as having bigger batches of calves to sell when the market is good.
All cows were bred to AI, which I normally do myself. However, last autumn, I was recovering from hip surgery, so I got the same person that scanned the cows to inseminate them for me. The cows are served to the Charolais bulls Fiston, Clogher Finn and Firoda Jason.
Cows were served to natural heats, with animals being watched in the shed, as well as on the camera for signs of breeding activity and they were easy to pick up.
Improved fertility
Over the last three years, I have put a lot of time and effort into improving the herd and culling less productive cows.
It takes time to change the herd, but thankfully, I am now seeing the benefits with more fertile and maternal cows.
Autumn calving is now down to a 10- to 11-week period. Prior to the programme, cows were calving from August to Christmas.
Weaning
Across all of the autumn calves, liveweight averaged 267kg on 4 March, with calves gaining 1.22kg/day over winter.
The strongest calves born last August have now been weaned as they were over 300kg liveweight. So far, 22 calves have been weaned and these animals are now getting 2kg/day of concentrate and good silage.
There was a Simmental calf born on the day we hosted our farm walk back on 5 September, and it has been weaned at 310kg.
Fodder
I am starting to get tight for silage, which is another reason for starting to wean cows now. The 22 cows that have been weaned were put on straw for a few days, and are now on a maintenance diet of silage, mixed with straw, to stretch fodder reserves.
The rest of the autumn cows are on silage only, eating three-quarters of a bale per day. Their calves are getting meal through the creep area.
Sale plans
The plan for the weaned calves is to hopefully sell them through the live ring in May, ideally around 350kg to 380kg.
The remainder of the autumn calves will be weaned and grazed over the summer, then offloaded in August or September. Ideally, I want to get 100kg of liveweight on these younger calves from grass before they are sold.
Cull cows
The autumn-calving cows that scanned empty were sold for slaughter, along with two older cows that were not bred. The cows averaged 354kg deadweight and averaged £955 per head.
With the autumn-calving herd settled in-calf, my main focus is now on the breeding period for the spring cows, which calve during December and January.
The first cow was served on 23 February and up to last weekend, I had 16 out of 20 cows served in a 19-day period.
Again, all cows are being bred to AI. Sires used include Fiston, Firoda Jason and Goldstar Ludwig.
I am also using some sexed semen to try and get a few heifers out of my best maternal and fertile cows.
Some of the sexed semen is from the Simmental bull Coose Jerricho, a five-star bull for both terminal and maternal traits.
As with the autumn cows, I am happy to see that fertility is improving in the spring-calving cows as a result of the changes made in recent years.
Cows were very quick to come back into heat after calving this spring. I had planned to restrict the calves sucking the cows by locking them in the creep area during the day.
I have found this to be a great way to bring cows into heat.
But there has been no need to do it this spring, as cows were showing plenty of breeding activity on their own without locking the calves away.
The spring-calving cows are on high-quality silage and 1kg of concentrate. Having my own machinery to make silage before grass heads out has also been a big factor in improving cow fertility.
Rather than going for pure bulk, I aim to balance yield and feed quality with first-cut silage harvested in mid to late May.
It was analysed and had a feed value of 74 D-Value with crude protein at 14.6%, which is some of the best-quality silage across all the farms in the programme. It goes to show that we can make high-quality silage in the west of Fermanagh.
Store cattle sold
I sold 22 of last year’s spring-born calves back in early February.
There were 13 bullocks sold in two batches, with the first seven animals averaging 430kg at £993 (231p/kg). The remaining six bullocks averaged 443kg and made £965 (218p/kg).
Heifers
I also sold nine heifers at an average 442kg liveweight. These animals averaged £923 when sold, or 209p/kg.
I still have a few stores to sell. They were weighed on 20 February and averaged 390kg, having gained 1.43kg/day over winter.
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