Cattle are entering the second half of the grazing season on most farms, so now is a good time to weigh animals and check weight gains from turnout.

Having a physical weight puts you in a better place to make decisions for finishing cattle off grass, housing for winter or to decide which animals to sell live this autumn.

Cattle can appear to be thriving, but it is easy to be 20kg to 40kg away from the actual liveweight when guessing.

Also, you can compare to previous years and see if animals are behind target, or on track to hit sale weight coming into the autumn.

Steers and heifers with 100% suckler breeding should be gaining around 1kg/day from grass. For cattle that will be slaughtered off grass in September, animals should be 50kg to 60kg off their target sale weight in mid-July.

Calves on the cow should be gaining 1.2kg/day to 1.5kg/day without creep-feeding. Calves born in February and March are now four to five months old, or 120 to 150 days of age. These animals should be well over 200kg liveweight at this stage of the year.

Weigh animals at the next chance and ideally combine this with the opportunity to worm calves or give animals a pneumonia vaccine.

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