This autumn, the BETTER Farm programme will host four regional farm walks. The focus of the walks is managing autumn grass and setting the farm up for spring grazing again. In addition, the events will focus on preparing calves for weaning and winter feeding of store and finishing cattle.

The first event will be hosted by James Madigan on his 62ha farm near Ballyhale, Kilkenny, on 4 September. James runs 82 suckler cows split into spring and autumn calving. Before joining the programme, he sold all progeny as stores.

As part of his farm plan, developed with the help of programme adviser Peter Lawrence and local B&T adviser Austin Flavin, the decision was made to take all cattle through to slaughter with males finished as steers.

Herd details

Spring calving consists of 44 cows calving from early January to early March, with 38 autumn cows calving from August to September.

Both herds calve inside a 10-week period with a calving index of 378 days. Cows are served by two Charolais stock bulls, one bred by CF52 and a new herd sire bred by Major, who has just had his second calf crop hit the ground in 2014.

Autumn calving commenced on 1 August and, to date, 28 cows have calved with 28 calves on the ground. Two calves died at birth but with two cows having twins, they were able to be fostered with little trouble.

Autumn cows were weaned in early June and placed on restricted grazing. They were housed briefly before calving and offered a mix of straw and silage before returning to top-quality grass. Meal will be introduced at housing and removed once settled in-calf.

Spring cows are weaned around 1 October. Cows and calves are weaned in two batches by splitting them into two groups and dividing with fencing or housing.

Target weaning weights for spring calves is 350kg liveweight and has been achieved in the past few years.

In 2013, spring calves were weaned and housed at an average of 364kg liveweight. In 2014, spring bull calves were weighed on 21 August and averaged 291kg, which is a daily gain of 1.33kg since birth.

Cow type is mainly Simmental cross. Heifers are sourced at 18 months from a neighbouring dairy farm.

The dairy cross Simmental heifers come onto the farm having received a full vaccination programme. James breeds these heifers to calve into the autumn herd.

Replacement heifers for the spring herd are then retained from the autumn herd.

The combination of milk and good continental genetics allows James to achieve high levels of weight gain from grass, which suits his heifer and steer finishing system.

Both factors remove a lot of the added costs normally associated with autumn and early spring calving.

While the farm is naturally dry, being able to exploit the full potential of grass, milky cows and genetics comes down to the herd manager, as many farms possess similar resources, but have cattle that are consistently under-performing or too reliant on concentrates.

Steer system

As James works full-time off-farm and the farm is split into two land blocks, he prefers the steer system, as it offers simplicity in terms of management.

James’s management is top class, so harnessing this as cheap liveweight gain over two seasons makes the steer system more economically viable.

The dry nature of his land allows for an eight-month grazing season, which enables cattle to put on close to 200kg of liveweight from grass.

Autumn steers will be finished off grass by late September at 23 to 24 months of age. Spring steers are housed in late September to early October and finished by Christmas.

Given the cost of intensive indoor feeding, James does not see the benefit of storing cattle through the first half of winter to finish them in March to May.

Weight gain

In 2013, a group of 14 spring steers went to grass on 16 March weighing 382kg. These cattle excelled at grass despite the difficult spring.

The steers were housed on 1 October at an average liveweight of 640kg, which is a gain of 258kg over 199 days, or 1.3kg/day at grass. The group was slaughtered at Christmas at an average of 405kg carcase weight, having gained 1.6kg liveweight/day once housed.

This year, 19 spring yearlings went to grass in mid-March at an average of 413kg having gained 0.52kg/day over winter on a silage diet.

By 28 June, the group averaged 535kg and averaged 1kg/day from grass. Steers were weighed on 21 August and averaged 577kg at 18 months of age.

Once housed, steers will be finished on 15kg silage and 6kg of ration. Silage fed last winter was 76 DMD, 34% dry matter and 12.2% protein.

As James makes his own silage, he has greater control over cutting date, which helps with quality.

Silage from 2014 has yet to be analysed, but based on current prices and 2013 results, the finishing diet will cost approximately €1.82/kg, taking silage at €25/t and ration at €240/t.

This year is the first year that autumn steers will be killed off-farm. There are 13 steers due to finish in late September. They weighed 531kg at turnout in early March and 646kg on 28 June, which is a gain of 0.97kg/day. Meal was introduced three weeks ago at 3kg/day of a 14% finishing nut.

The autumn steers will be finished on approximately 200kg of meal (€240/t) at a cost of €48/head. These calves consumed a similar quantity of meal last winter, which means that the total lifetime meal fed to autumn-born steers, including the meal fed to their dam at housing, is approximately 500kg in total.

Grassland management

Having top-class genetics is pointless if you are not feeding animals to realise their potential. This can be achieved with concentrates at high cost or with good grass at low cost.

Over the past seven years, the entire farm has been reseeded. Rotational grazing with paddocks means that all cattle are constantly moving to good-quality grass throughout the year.

Silage ground is rotated annually, which prevents soil fertility being depleted through repeated cutting on the same land.

Soil pH for the farm is at the ideal range of 6.0 to 6.3 and potassium (K) levels are at the ideal levels of index 2 or greater. Phosphate (P) levels are low, so compounds such as 10:10:20 are used regularly, along with sulpha-CAN due to lighter soils on the farm.

Young swards are more responsive to fertilizer and can support higher stocking rates. This year, the autumn and spring steers grazed together in a group of 32 animals on 18 acres.

Taking an average mid-season weight of 600kg for the autumn steers and 500kg for the spring steers, this works out at 961kg liveweight/acre, or 2,373kg liveweight/ha.

Assuming that both groups continue to achieve 1kg liveweight/day until 1 September, the cattle will have gained 184kg from grass. Across the group, this amounts to 5,888kg of liveweight produced.

Taking five bags of CAN (€300/t) and two bags/acre of 10:10:20 (€380), the cost per kilogramme of liveweight gain to date is approximately €0.35/kg.