With the grazing season now at the halfway point, it is a good time to review cattle performance. Weighing cattle is one of the best management tasks that can be carried out on farm, but it is often one of the most neglected or ignored.

Suckler beef farmers are in the business of producing kilogrammes of liveweight, so they should know how cattle are performing over a 30-, 60- or 90-day period since turnout.

Weighing calves will indicate which cows are lacking in milk and should potentially be marked for culling.

Calves should be gaining 1.2kg to 1.5kg/day while suckling the cow. If calves are behind target, you should ask is there a health problem that is suppressing weight gain, do cows lack milk, are herd genetics good enough or is grazing management just not up to scratch?

For store cattle, weighing means you can plan out which animals are likely to kill off grass and which animals will need to be re-housed for intensive finishing.

Knowing the weight of cattle will allow you to complete a sale budget to determine if animals are better off sold live or housed for finishing.

Store cattle may look like they are thriving, but are cattle doing 0.8kg/day or 1kg/day? Over a 180- to 200-day grazing season, this weight gain difference could amount to another 35kg to 40kg of liveweight, worth £90 to £100 per head at current mart prices.

Combining worm control with weighing of cattle ensures that animals are correctly dosed and provides a more effective cover period.

Week in review

  • Grazing paddocks have been topped and dressed with nitrogen after each rotation.
  • Second-cut silage is now coming ready for harvesting.
  • Cattle are being weighed to monitor grazing performance.
  • Cattle are being wormed to control parasites.

    • Farmer focus: Jonathan Blair, Ballykelly, Limavady

    Second-cut silage ready for harvest

    It has been a great grass growing year and we have second-cut silage ready for harvesting next week.

    There are 30 acres to mow and harvest. Second cut will be baled and stored on an outfarm where we winter cattle.

    The alternative would be to draw grass home, ensile in the pit and then draw silage back to the outfarm on a daily basis during winter. Silage will be made using a local contractor.

    We are still under-stocked on grazing land and, with high grass growth this year, we have been taking out surplus grass as bales to manage grazing quality.

    I will probably make a third cut to manage grass in August. It is unlikely that I will use all of this silage this winter, but I would rather have a surplus of good-quality forage in reserve than run short. Silage quality will be excellent, so there may be a possibility of selling some bales at a later date.

    I am following each grazing with nitrogen, spreading 22 to 27 units per acre and using soil analysis results to select the correct type of fertiliser, as I want to build soil fertility levels.

    Cattle are grazing on three-day paddocks at present and grass utilisation is extremely good. I am delighted with how the paddock system has worked out this year.

    It has really opened my eyes to the potential of the land. Mains electric fencing has now been installed on farm which can power 64km of wire. Cattle have learned to respect the wire which is making herding much easier.

    We put up 1,000m of fencing along waterways and to make additional paddocks using clipex fencing posts and two strands of high-tensile wire. It took two days to erect the fences and cost just over £800, which was great value.

    Cattle health

    Cattle are thriving and due to be weighed next week. Weighing will be combined with a worm dose. All first-calved heifers, store bullocks, breeding heifers and spring-born calves will be wormed.

    Calves will be wormed again in late summer which will get them ready for weaning. They will also get a pneumonia and IBR vaccine in late summer to reduce the risk of any respiratory problems around weaning time.

    Breeding

    We have all cows at grass in two groups for breeding management. The first group has 33 cows and calves and they are running with the Stabiliser bull.

    Included in this group are 11 heifers that were synchronised and bred to fix-time AI back in May. I have noticed three of these heifers repeating, so they are running with the bull to get them served.

    The second group consists of 27 cows and they are running with our Angus stock bull. This group also contains 10 Stabiliser heifers that were purchased to try to build cow numbers. I also synchronised nine cows in this group and have seen three animals repeating.

    Stock bulls went out on 23 May and will stay with cows until mid August. There have been high levels of bulling activity over the past two few weeks, so hopefully there will be a good part of the herd now settled in-calf.

    New cattle housing

    We have started construction of a new cattle shed on farm this week. All of the existing housing facilities on the farm are straw-bedded, with some sheds not really practical for feeding purposes or to suit cows and small calves.

    The new shed will measure 100ft in length by 50ft in width, with an open side for feeding. It will be used to house cows and calves, so the floor will be split with slats and a straw run back.

    Calving facilities and creep areas will also be included in the shed. The shed will be also set up to allow calves to creep outdoors in early spring.

    We started digging the tank on Monday. It will be 26ft in width and 108ft long. Tank depth will be 10ft.

    After the tank is shuttered and steel is erected, shed walls will be built using pre-cast slabs and Yorkshire cladding to provide ventilation.

    I am going with plastic coated tin on the roof rather than cement fibre panels for ease of maintenance.

    Once completed, the new shed will greatly relieve housing pressure and simplify cow management over winter. Slurry will also be a valuable fertiliser for early spring grass growth.

    Read more

    All reports from the BETTER farm NI programme