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Of the nine cull cows being fed since weaning, six were sent to the factory for slaughter on Friday morning. They had been on ad-lib 72DMD second-cut silage and 6.5kg/day concentrates.
As well as this, there were 20 lambs slaughtered, which now leaves just 20 lambs on-farm. Farm manager Shaun Diver expects to have another draft from these in two weeks’ time. This week’s lambs averaged 21.4kg carcase weight and came in at €120/head.
Shaun said at this stage, he is drafting more on fat cover rather than weight. The lightest ewe lamb drafted was 40kg, but she was well fleshed and would be at risk of going overfat in a fortnight’s time. The majority of ewe lambs were 43kg to 45kg, while ram lambs were around the 46kg to 48kg weight range.
Sheep breeding
Breeding for the ewes is to come to an end this weekend. The rams will have been with them for 35 days by Saturday, which is just over two cycles and Shaun plans to remove the rams at this stage. Going by the raddle markings, the rams have done very little work in the last two weeks, which will hopefully lead to a tight lambing spread in spring.
Grass
Also this week, the final grass walk of the year was completed. The average farm cover is 730kg DM/ha. Within this, there is one very strong paddock with a cover of over 3,500kgDM/ha. Shaun plans to strip graze this with the ewes from the end of next week. It is hoped that this will see them through to Christmas and New Year. There are a couple more fields that will be grazed from then until mid-January when the ewes will be housed.
Once this stong paddock is taken out of the equation, the average farm cover is around 670kg DM/ha and Shaun is satisfied with this as a closing figure. Daily growth is currently 9kg DM/ha, while demand is just 3kg DM/ha.
Bulls
The bull weanlings are currently getting 3kg of a 16% concentrate. This will be built up to 5kg in December, before moving to ad-lib meal in January. The current ration is costing €260/t, delivered in bulk.
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