Willie Treacy

Co Louth

The past few weeks have been very busy here. We have the majority of stock housed at this stage, bar a group of 20 autumn-calved cows with young calves at foot. They remain out.

There is also a group of 25 in-calf and store heifers currently at grass, but we are now on the last two paddocks and these will be housed shortly.

The group of autumn calvers is currently being supplemented with silage at grass, and lick buckets are in fields to help protect against grass tetany. Grass silage was tested – the first-cut came back at 71DMD with an 11.5% protein at 24% dry matter. Second-cut silage was a little disappointing at 65DMD, but has a protein content of 13.5% and is 35% dry matter.

The spring-calving cows are currently eating a restricted diet of silage and straw. They were housed in mid-October and weaning took place in the shed over the last few weeks on a gradual basis.

The weanlings are being fed ad-lib silage and 2kg of meal per day. I intend to draft the cows in the coming week and separate them into two batches, based on BCS.

Most of my cows are in very good order and the focus over the next two months will be on reducing body condition gradually.

There is a batch of bulls housed since mid-August for finishing. They are currently eating 11kg of concentrates and a small amount of silage.

There is a batch of spring 2013-born heifers in for finishing at the moment also. They are eating 6kg of concentrates and are on ad-lib first-cut silage. The meal I am feeding is a three-way mix of barley, distillers and maize split equally. I will start pulling out some of the heifers and bulls that are slaughter-fit in the coming weeks.

David Mitchell

Monaghan

All stock have been housed here in Shantonagh, with weanling heifers being the last cattle to come in. We had good covers of grass on some fields with good autumn growth.

I would have liked to get these fields grazed off with cattle. However, the ewes can clean off these heavy covers before the end of the month.

Steers were weighed going into the shed and have done quite well over the past few months. They were weighed on 1 July at 461kg and weighed 588kg on 29 October, which is just over 1kg/day liveweight gain. Last year’s group of steers were weighed on 22 November at 485kg. What a difference a year makes.

These steers are housed and are currently on 5kg of a 14% beef nut and I hope to start killing these around January or February, which is a little earlier than other years.

I don’t think there is any point in storing these animals while in the shed and, having put on lot of weight at grass, I will try to keep them going now while indoors to get them finished earlier.

Silage has been sampled and I am waiting to get analysis back. We will also take some blood samples in the next few weeks to determine fluke and worm burdens.

We weighed our spring-born calves on 27 August and were happy with the results. Bull calves weighed 263kg and gained 1.23kg/day since birth and heifer calves weighed 220kg and also gained 1.23kg/day since birth.

These calves are all currently weaned and housed, and are eating the best-quality silage I have and also 2kg/day of a 14% ration.

All stock were vaccinated for IBR before housing to get them over the stress of housing and their new environment.

Autumn calving is going well with seven calved and no problems to report.