As we look at grass growth and ground conditions, if present trends continue, we should be able to graze before the end of February, just six weeks away.

At this stage, we are trying to decide which bulls to keep in the shed and finish out of it and which to let graze for a month or two. We have been feeding the bulls too light to go on a finishing diet with silage and 1.5kg of rolled barley and a bit more of beans.

The usual best advice is to cut back on the concentrate feed for the six weeks to two months before the bulls go out to grass, so that they can gain the maximum amount from compensatory growth on good spring grass. This is probably the strategy we will adopt with the lighter bulls but keep all over 450kg to 480kg indoors and shift them to a full finishing diet once they reach 520kg to 550kg to reach target weight allowed of roughly 420kg carcase.