This is a subscriber-only article
Four of the programme farms who aim to have calving completed by mid-May next year have now undertaken scanning of their spring herds.
This can be done from 35 days after the last date you want your last cow to be served by. To be finished calving by mid-May, all cows should have been served by the last week in July. It means that scanning can now be carried out anytime on these farms.
By scanning now and evaluating the results, it allows programme farmers to make decisions as to how ruthless they can be with culling.
It also allows these farms to separate empty cows and calves off. The cows can be fed concentrate at grass to enable earlier finishing, or in some cases where cows are already fat and have strong calves at foot, these cows can be culled in September. Finishing unproductive cows now will save on fodder, money, time and shed space.
Predict due dates
Most scanners can also give a good indication at this point as to the number of weeks each cow or heifer has gone in-calf. This is information that can be used to more accurately predict due dates, which in turn can allow feeding management and pre-calving vaccinations to be more accurately timed.
Scanning now will also show up any fertility issues so that these can be addressed. High levels of infertility of greater than 10% may require further investigation. Is the bull performing? Is there a mineral deficiency or is there a disease or management problem that needs further investigation?
Earlier this week, we scanned our spring-calving cows and replacement heifers.
Originally, I had 30 cows and 13 heifers earmarked for breeding. But earlier in the summer I sold one of the heifers and a cow which was fat and not worth keeping.
From the remaining 29 cows, 28 scanned in-calf, along with 11 of the 12 heifers. Breeding had started on 5 May and ended on 13 July (10 weeks). Considering that I was concerned early on that cows were slow to cycle, I am very pleased with the results. Nine of the heifers and 22 of the cows held to first service.
Although I had not seen any bulling activity in recent weeks, scanning is still very worthwhile. It allows me to adjust the management of those empty cows and heifers to get them out of the system earlier.
Numbers
When I joined the programme, I had just taken on extra conacre and I planned to build up to 60 suckler cows, split evenly between spring- and autumn-calving.
I also intended to finish spring-born males as steers at 20 to 22 months and the autumn-born males as bulls under 16 months.
The use of maternal breeding through AI has left a surplus of heifers now available leaving me with lots of options. I could sell surplus in-calf heifers or alternatively also finish the spring-born males as bulls, which would free up more ground to increase spring-calving cows above 30.
Bull beef has always performed well for me and I am leaning towards this option. I would expect my February/March-born bulls to be away by 13 to 14 months. It is a decision that needs to be made over the next month.
Management of autumn calvers
Most of those cows due to calve in August and September have now been brought home and are grazing close to the yard. Those not yet calved are being used to clean out paddocks either after recently calved cows, or the spring-calving batch.
If grazing conditions remain poor, the dry cows will be housed for a few days to ease the pressure on ground. They are relatively easy maintained and unlike other stock on the farm won’t take any setback by housing for short periods.
This batch started calving on 28 July and should be finished by the end of September. Regardless of conditions they will be housed by early October for rebreeding.
Bulls and steers housed
The 2015 spring-born steers and autumn-born bulls were grazed together. I tried to ensure that they had access to leafy grass swards throughout the summer. From experience, bulls will only achieve high levels of weight gain at grass if this is the case at all times.
To achieve this, they were grazed over recently reseeded fields which were subdivided to allow a maximum of three-days grazing per paddock. Most of these paddocks have also been topped twice. In some cases, dry autumn-calving cows were also used to clean out residuals.
The resulting performance has been good. At housing on 17 August, the bulls and steers averaged 465kg and 553kg, respectively. This represents weight gains of 1.5kg per day from grass alone for the bulls and 1.23kg per day from the steers since the last weighing on 27 May.These cattle are now being fed with round bales, which were taken off as surplus from paddocks over the summer.
These bales are useful for feeding without having to open the silage when small numbers are housed.
Good regrowth after second cut, together with the housing of beef cattle, has allowed me to build grass covers.
Bulls are being built up to ad-lib meal along with silage, while the steers will gradually be built up to 7kg per day over the next month.
From past experience, these cattle are better housed, particularly the bulls, as weight gains at grass can start to decline from now on.
I expect both bulls and steers to kill out at 370kg to 380kg by early December. Housing these cattle is also freeing up much needed grass for freshly calved cows.
Good regrowth after second cut, together with the housing of beef cattle, has allowed me to build grass covers. Response to fertiliser applied recently has also been good.
However, spring-calving cows are generally unsettled before leaving paddocks.
The recent spell of wet weather has certainly not helped.
Next week, I intend dividing the spring-calvers into two groups with bull and heifer calves kept separate. I find that smaller groups from now on are much easier to keep content. I will encourage calves to forward graze and offer calves meal in troughs to prepare for weaning from mid-September onwards.
SHARING OPTIONS: