What a spring we’ve been having; it certainly makes life on the farm a lot easier compared to this time last year. Closing for silage has been delayed slightly again this year though but for an entirely different reason to other years. Getting a big area of ground closed for pit silage is always a bit of a juggling act compared to just taking out surpluses as round bales. There’s usually a bit of a panic involved when wondering if the grazing ground will struggle to meet demand once silage has been closed up.

This April, growth rates have been so good that the stock are actually struggling to get it all grazed off so that slurry can be applied. Silage ground is receiving 3,000 gallons an acre of fairly watery slurry. It will then get another 80 units of nitrogen in the form of Cut Sward as soon as the slurry has been washed in. This ground has already received 30-40 units of nitrogen for early grazing but it’s unlikely that there’s any of it remaining as the exceptional growth rates over the past few weeks will have used it all up.

The glorious sunshine is also helping breeding with plenty of heats being detected. Unfortunately, there are also some repeats from cows that were served in the few weeks before they were let out. The transition from the shed to the field always seems to upset the in-calf rate for a couple of weeks; it’s just something we have come to accept. The calves are also enjoying the flush of extra milk that appears when the cows get to grass. The early calves are now doing a fair bit of grazing too, which should help drive them on.

The last of the young bulls have been re-housed and are in the process of being built up onto ad-lib meal. They’ve performed well on their few weeks at grass but to finish them properly they have to go back inside. After doing the sums, there was no advantage in selling them at current market prices compared to finishing them myself; the eternal optimist in me is hoping against hope that there might even be a price increase by the time they’re fit, although the realist in me is suggesting I’m more likely to be celebrating a Mayo win in Croke Park next September. Imagine the odds on that for a double!

The challenge now is to try to get appropriate cover of fat on them at less than 400kg carcase weight before they reach 16 months of age. I’m considering increasing the level of maize meal up to 35 - 40% in the ration to see if it helps to achieve the elusive fat score of 3 in continental young bulls in their last few weeks.

There are no signs of any light at the end of the beef trade tunnel yet. It struck me the other day that the specs being imposed on the beef trade by the processors at the moment fly in the face of decades of constant improvements in beef breeding.

Growth rate

For years, we have selecting cattle with traits such as growth rate and conformation. As it stands, the least efficient animals are the ones that are most likely to meet the specs that are in place at the moment – butty-type cattle with a lower growth rate that get fat at a much lower carcase weight. What type of message is that giving to farmers just in advance of the main breeding season?

By messing around with the specifications factories are succeeding in excluding many prime cattle from receiving the 12 cents bonus that they were rushed into paying last year when they had “supply chain issues”.