Heavy and regular rainfall over the past month has made ground conditions too soft for the majority of the programme farmers to start getting cattle out to grass.
There have been some cattle at grass on two of the drier farms earlier this month, but numbers have been limited.
Mid-March is a target for most of the programme farmers to resume grazing, with lighter cattle getting priority in early spring as they cause less sward damage where ground is wet.
With unseasonably mild temperatures over the winter period, there is a good supply of grass built up on the farms to support early grazing.
Sooner rather than later
It is important that grazing of these swards starts sooner rather than later to prevent covers from becoming too heavy and leading to a high percentage of spoiled grass. This will reduce sward quality in the second rotation.
It is also important that these covers are grazed off tight in the first rotation, especially on silage ground which will be closed up in early April for cutting in late May. To start off grazing, the programme farmers will be flexible in terms of grass management. Group sizes will increase as ground conditions allow.
Temporary electric wire will be used where necessary to control the size of the grazing area and daily grazing allowance so that grass utilisation is high.
Most farms have applied slurry or chemical fertiliser at this stage, well in advance of grazing.
Grass response has been good. Any further applications of fertiliser this month will be based on grazing days ahead.
Week in review
Regular rainfall has delayed the turn-out date for lighter cattle.A mild winter has led to a build-up of good grass covers on the farms.Fertiliser and slurry have been applied in advance of grazing to boost grass growth in paddocks with lower covers.Spring-calving has now started on several farms with no issues to date.Declan Rafferty and Aidan Quinn, Pomeroy, Co Tyrone
Busy start to the
calving season
Our spring herd started calving in the past week and there has been plenty of activity. So far, we have 20 cows calved out of 75. There were 80 cows scanned in-calf last autumn, but there were a few cows that lost their calf, including one to photosensitivity.
At the minute, we would be averaging around five cows calving per day. Thankfully, there have been no issues to date, with all cows delivering healthy calves on the ground. Cows are calving to three stock bulls, which are a Stabiliser, a Limousin and a Simmental.
From scanning dates, there should be 74% of the cows calving inside the first six weeks of the calving period. The remainder of the cows will all calve before the end of April. Bulls were removed in time to prevent any slippage into May.
There are 16 heifers to calve this spring. They are due to start calving in the coming week. The heifers were all synchronised and inseminated with an Angus bull. A sweeper bull was put with the heifers around 14 days after AI and removed 14 days later.
Feed
Cows are in good body condition and have been well managed over winter. Prior to calving, cows are on second-cut silage plus 150g/day of pre-calving minerals for the past three weeks. Minerals were fed at 100g/day over the three weeks beforehand.
After calving, cows are moved on to first-cut silage and 1kg of rolled barley to provide a bit of extra energy to help milk production.
First-cut silage is excellent, with a high feed value of 75 D-Value. Dry matter is 27.9% and protein levels are 14.8%.
With such good-quality silage, there is no need to feed a high-price compound ration to freshly calved cows.
Freshly calved cows are housed in our new shed, which has purpose-built calf creeps. Calves have access to clean, dry straw-bedded lying areas while cows remain on slats.
The new shed provides plenty of housing space for the spring cows until ground conditions allow them to go out to grass.
Autumn herd
The autumn cows were scanned recently and there are 19 cows and heifers calving in August. These cows are on ad-lib silage at present. There were a few empty cows in the group, which we have since weaned and put into a separate pen for fattening.
These cows will be finished after 100 days of intensive feeding. Cows are on 8kg/day of rolled barley and ad-lib silage. Weaning these animals early and fattening them really adds value to cull cows, which makes it less expensive to bring through homebred replacement heifers.
Autumn calves are still on 2kg/day of barley plus first-cut silage and they have performed well over the winter.
Finishing cattle
Last year’s spring-born calves were split into two groups at housing. Angus-sired calves have been kept as steers, while continental calves are bulls.
There are nine steers in a group to graze this year, before finishing them next back-end under the Angus scheme, which will add further value to these cattle.
There are 19 spring-born bulls in a group being intensively fed for finishing in the next two to three months.
Bulls are gaining 1.6kg/day since housing and currently weigh around 520kg on average. Due to calving spread, there are some older bulls weighing well above the average and a few lighter bulls.
They are all on ad-lib meal and eating 9kg/day of a barley, soya and distillers mix. Minerals are also included. We will draw bulls from the group as they come fit for slaughter.
Along with the steers, we have 40 yearling heifers to go back to grass. The best heifers will be kept for replacements to calve next spring at 24 months of age.
We are undecided on numbers as yet, as we have been trying to grow the herd since joining the programme.
Planning for turnout
We have most of the grazing land and silage ground slurried at this stage. Slurry was applied with the tanker at 3,000 gallons per acre using our own machinery. Only the steeper land was not covered for safety reasons.
Fertiliser has been purchased, but nothing has been spread yet. There is too much grass to apply fertiliser at the moment, so we need to get cattle on to the ground to start grazing soon.
We are hoping to get lighter autumn calves and some very light spring-born heifers out to grass within the next two weeks.
After this, we will apply bagged fertiliser to push regrowth. Hopefully we will be able to slip some freshly calved cows out to grass also.
Read more
All reports from the NI Suckler Beef Programme
Heavy and regular rainfall over the past month has made ground conditions too soft for the majority of the programme farmers to start getting cattle out to grass.
There have been some cattle at grass on two of the drier farms earlier this month, but numbers have been limited.
Mid-March is a target for most of the programme farmers to resume grazing, with lighter cattle getting priority in early spring as they cause less sward damage where ground is wet.
With unseasonably mild temperatures over the winter period, there is a good supply of grass built up on the farms to support early grazing.
Sooner rather than later
It is important that grazing of these swards starts sooner rather than later to prevent covers from becoming too heavy and leading to a high percentage of spoiled grass. This will reduce sward quality in the second rotation.
It is also important that these covers are grazed off tight in the first rotation, especially on silage ground which will be closed up in early April for cutting in late May. To start off grazing, the programme farmers will be flexible in terms of grass management. Group sizes will increase as ground conditions allow.
Temporary electric wire will be used where necessary to control the size of the grazing area and daily grazing allowance so that grass utilisation is high.
Most farms have applied slurry or chemical fertiliser at this stage, well in advance of grazing.
Grass response has been good. Any further applications of fertiliser this month will be based on grazing days ahead.
Week in review
Regular rainfall has delayed the turn-out date for lighter cattle.A mild winter has led to a build-up of good grass covers on the farms.Fertiliser and slurry have been applied in advance of grazing to boost grass growth in paddocks with lower covers.Spring-calving has now started on several farms with no issues to date.Declan Rafferty and Aidan Quinn, Pomeroy, Co Tyrone
Busy start to the
calving season
Our spring herd started calving in the past week and there has been plenty of activity. So far, we have 20 cows calved out of 75. There were 80 cows scanned in-calf last autumn, but there were a few cows that lost their calf, including one to photosensitivity.
At the minute, we would be averaging around five cows calving per day. Thankfully, there have been no issues to date, with all cows delivering healthy calves on the ground. Cows are calving to three stock bulls, which are a Stabiliser, a Limousin and a Simmental.
From scanning dates, there should be 74% of the cows calving inside the first six weeks of the calving period. The remainder of the cows will all calve before the end of April. Bulls were removed in time to prevent any slippage into May.
There are 16 heifers to calve this spring. They are due to start calving in the coming week. The heifers were all synchronised and inseminated with an Angus bull. A sweeper bull was put with the heifers around 14 days after AI and removed 14 days later.
Feed
Cows are in good body condition and have been well managed over winter. Prior to calving, cows are on second-cut silage plus 150g/day of pre-calving minerals for the past three weeks. Minerals were fed at 100g/day over the three weeks beforehand.
After calving, cows are moved on to first-cut silage and 1kg of rolled barley to provide a bit of extra energy to help milk production.
First-cut silage is excellent, with a high feed value of 75 D-Value. Dry matter is 27.9% and protein levels are 14.8%.
With such good-quality silage, there is no need to feed a high-price compound ration to freshly calved cows.
Freshly calved cows are housed in our new shed, which has purpose-built calf creeps. Calves have access to clean, dry straw-bedded lying areas while cows remain on slats.
The new shed provides plenty of housing space for the spring cows until ground conditions allow them to go out to grass.
Autumn herd
The autumn cows were scanned recently and there are 19 cows and heifers calving in August. These cows are on ad-lib silage at present. There were a few empty cows in the group, which we have since weaned and put into a separate pen for fattening.
These cows will be finished after 100 days of intensive feeding. Cows are on 8kg/day of rolled barley and ad-lib silage. Weaning these animals early and fattening them really adds value to cull cows, which makes it less expensive to bring through homebred replacement heifers.
Autumn calves are still on 2kg/day of barley plus first-cut silage and they have performed well over the winter.
Finishing cattle
Last year’s spring-born calves were split into two groups at housing. Angus-sired calves have been kept as steers, while continental calves are bulls.
There are nine steers in a group to graze this year, before finishing them next back-end under the Angus scheme, which will add further value to these cattle.
There are 19 spring-born bulls in a group being intensively fed for finishing in the next two to three months.
Bulls are gaining 1.6kg/day since housing and currently weigh around 520kg on average. Due to calving spread, there are some older bulls weighing well above the average and a few lighter bulls.
They are all on ad-lib meal and eating 9kg/day of a barley, soya and distillers mix. Minerals are also included. We will draw bulls from the group as they come fit for slaughter.
Along with the steers, we have 40 yearling heifers to go back to grass. The best heifers will be kept for replacements to calve next spring at 24 months of age.
We are undecided on numbers as yet, as we have been trying to grow the herd since joining the programme.
Planning for turnout
We have most of the grazing land and silage ground slurried at this stage. Slurry was applied with the tanker at 3,000 gallons per acre using our own machinery. Only the steeper land was not covered for safety reasons.
Fertiliser has been purchased, but nothing has been spread yet. There is too much grass to apply fertiliser at the moment, so we need to get cattle on to the ground to start grazing soon.
We are hoping to get lighter autumn calves and some very light spring-born heifers out to grass within the next two weeks.
After this, we will apply bagged fertiliser to push regrowth. Hopefully we will be able to slip some freshly calved cows out to grass also.
Read more
All reports from the NI Suckler Beef Programme
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