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In Roscommon, Padraig O’Connor is supplementing his in-calf heifers with 1kg of a simple beef nut along with ad lib 65% dry matter digestibility (DMD) grass silage.
“I like to do this to make sure they’ve got the size when calving down at two-years-old – they’re still growing after all. If I had better silage I would reconsider. It’s only a taste of meal for them and it hasn’t led to calving difficulty in the past,” he told me.
The herd’s pregnancy scan also identified four cows carrying twins. These have been segregated and are also receiving a small amount of concentrate feed.
Padraig recently slaughtered the first draft of his spring 2016-born heifers. This is his first time pushing animals for slaughter prior to a second winter and it will allow him to potentially keep more cows as shed space is freed up for the winter.
“They were on around 5kg of a beef pellet (14% crude protein) for 100 days – 50 outdoors on 4kg and 50 indoors on 6kg and good grass silage,” Padraig said.
Eight heifers averaged 20.8 months at slaughter and graded R=, 3+, 320kg carcase weight on average. All were quality assured and a base price of €4.00/kg was achieved.
The remaining heifers are younger than these and Padraig will aim to slaughter them early in 2018.
An hour up the road in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, Robert Abbott is replacing some cows and contemplating his replacement strategy.
“I sold the last of my autumn herd – five cows with calves at foot went to Granard mart during the week and averaged €1,300. I have one left with a sore eye – I’ll sort that before I sell her. They cost too much to keep, between silage and meal. Next spring I’ll have 31 calving and the plan is to get to 50 by the end of the programme,” Robert said.
Two strong in-calf Limousin heifers and seven mature first-cross Limousin cows have been bought in to bolster the spring-calving herd.
Robert currently has one bull on the farm, a Saler, having sold on a Charolais stock bull earlier in the year.
“He was brought in for heifers but I’ll need to change him to something more terminal. I’m looking to bring more of my progeny to slaughter. I’ll probably look towards a terminal Charolais,” he said.
One bull isn’t going to be enough for 50 cows and a tight calving spread, so Robert will likely breed cows to AI for a number of weeks before letting the bull in.
“I can use maternal AI sires to breed replacements – I like the idea of a Simmental. I’ll have to buy in my replacements next year while I’m waiting for these calves to get to calving though,” Robert added.
Faecal sampling is ongoing across all of the BETTER beef farms and Robert’s results showed up a minor presence of rumen fluke. As a precaution, stock were subsequently treated with Levifas Diamond.
Robert made one of the best main cuts of silage in the BETTER farm programme this year. See his test results and the full league table in this week’s paper.
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