Since we changed from bulls to dairy beef steers, one of the standout features has been the difference in performance of animals that look and are treated more or less the same but gain weight and grade completely differently.

The difference in financial performance, not surprisingly, matched the difference in performance which of course comes down to the difference in the genetic makeup of the different animals.

This year I again paid the modest fee to ICBF to join their HerdPlus scheme. There is no point in pretending that I could have tackled the various online steps to come up with the information on the sires that was available, but the next generation seemed to be able to get to grips with the technology fairly quickly.

About 50% of the cattle I had bought in had information on their sire, and these varied from one star to five star. The next step in the process is to check and see how these differences in star ratings affected kill out, conversion efficiency and profitability.

Now that we see the potential of this ICBF system, I hope that we will see every beef-dairy cross animal that comes up for sale having the information on the sire available.

Where a few beef bulls are used to mop up in larger herds, there is no reason why a DNA profile of the calves should not be taken and tied back to the individual bull.

The more breeding information we have so that we can really test the validity of the DBI (Dairy Beef Index) and ensure that it is displayed on the mart board or given over with the blue card in a private sale, the more progress we will see nationally in developing an efficient beef industry using calves from the dairy herd.

First cut silage

Meanwhile, our best laid plans to have the first cut silage over and done by this stage have come unstuck because of the weather.

The intention at this stage is to cut the grass on Wednesday and pick it up after a good wilt. The forecast is favourable so I hope we won’t have lost too much in feed quality by the delay.

The last of our beef cattle from the shed are due to go to the factory this week after a long and expensive winter. We have already drafted a batch to go into the house for their final 30 to 40 day finishing period.

The intention from now on is to replace the cattle we move off the grass with younger stores that we will house in November.