With all cattle now housed on the farm, there are three groups of stock being fed for slaughter. These animals will be finished out of the shed over the next six to seven months.

To monitor performance, these cattle were weighed last weekend. Since joining the programme, we have been encouraged to weigh cattle regularly throughout the year and it is something we have found to be of great benefit to us.

By weighing cattle, we are now identifying periods when cattle groups are not meeting the target weight gains that have been set. This lets us take early action to determine why weight gains are low and correct it.

Furthermore, we are now using weighing records to alter herd management, as well as making breeding decisions based on progeny performance.

Weighing cattle has certainly made us concentrate more on ensuring cattle are always performing. While there are still improvements to be made and some periods of lifetime performance to be addressed, we feel we have made progress in this area.

As a result of weight recording, we are carrying fewer passengers, have fewer periods when stock are under-performing and cattle are now being slaughtered younger and more efficiently year on year.

Finishing group 1 - spring 2016-born bulls

The spring bulls were born from late February through to April. The group had an average weight of 344kg last weekend, which we reckon is around 30kg to 40kg behind our target weight. Liveweight ranged from 256kg to 425kg.

Poor performance last spring and some poor-performing cows would be contributing factors to these animals being behind target.

All of the Angus-sired calves, along with any calves under 300kg, have been weaned from their dam and will be put back to grass next spring. These animals will be finished as steers next autumn.

This leaves a group of 19 bulls with an average liveweight of 354kg and they are being finished on the same feeding programme as last year.

The finishing diet consists of high-quality silage (32.3% DM, 11.9 MJ energy, 13.2% protein, D-Value 74) and an ad-lib ration of barley, soya and maize distillers, along with minerals and vitamins.

We have found that in feeding this, the bulls self-regulate their intake of meal and silage. As long as silage and meals are always available, we have never had any digestive upsets.

Bulls are currently eating almost 5kg/day of the blend. Last year, the equivalent batch of bulls killed into an average carcase weight of 395kg. Average age for the group was 14.5 months.

We will need a liveweight gain of 1.6kg/day from now until slaughter to achieve a similar carcase weight at the same age this year.

Finishing group 2 - autumn 2015-born bulls

This group of cattle has an average birth date of 17 October 2015 and last weekend they averaged 545kg.

After really poor performance at grass this year, they have now benefitted from some compensatory growth as daily liveweight gain averaged 1.7kg/day over the past two months.

If an average daily gain of 1.5kg/day can be sustained over the next 50 days, we hope to slaughter these bulls at an estimated 360kg carcase weight.

They are on a similar feeding system to the spring-born bulls of meal and silage, but instead of a blend being offered, bulls are just getting rolled barley and minerals to supplement silage.

Finishing group 3 - spring 2015-born steers

The final group of finishing cattle is a group of 19 male calves that did not make the cut for bull beef last autumn. The group is mainly April- and May-born 2015 animals.

Last month, three Angus-sired steers from this group were slaughtered. They averaged 347kg carcase weight at 19 months. The remaining steers are now averaging 570kg liveweight and will be slaughtered over the next two months as they come fit. They are currently on the same high-quality silage as the other groups and 5kg of ration.

Keeping the focus on cow management over winter

Spring-calving cows

We have 62 cows and 16 heifers due to calve down next spring. Just over 70% of the cows are due in March. Our in-calf heifers averaged 560kg liveweight and are now being offered ad-lib silage of average feed quality. This is second-cut silage.

The remaining 62 cows have been divided into three groups according to body condition. The same average-quality silage (19.7% DM, 9.3% protein, 10.3 MJ energy) is being fed to all cows, but at different rates. Thinner cows have been fed ad-lib silage for the past month and they have gained condition. They are now being restricted to 28kg/day of silage. The main group of 40 cows is being restricted to 20kg/day to reduce body condition to 3.0.

Finally, a group of over-fat cows are on 20kg/day of silage and will be restricted at this level for a longer period. Where cows are restricted like this they must all be able to feed at once.

We are looking to have cows in their appropriate body condition score for calving by the end of December. After this, silage quantities will be increased weekly as calving date draws closer to support calf growth. In the past, we probably had too many cows that were over-fat at calving.

Autumn calvers

This group of cows calved from August through to early October. We have gradually been able to pull calving dates forward to better suit a bull finishing enterprise in this herd.

As cows calve earlier, we will aim to have bulls finished by December rather than January, ultimately reducing the amount of lifetime feed required.

We have seen all cows in this group served and breeding will continue until the end of December.

The replacement heifers were synchronised and served with fixed time AI in October. To date, we observed three repeats from a group of 19 heifers. Repeats have been covered with our Stabiliser stock bull.

Autumn-calving cows and heifers are being fed first-cut silage and 2kg/day of meal for the duration of breeding.

Animal health

This year, all young stock were treated for worms using a Doromectin product in advance of housing. Faecal egg counts post-housing indicate there is no need for another worm dose at the minute.

This year, we went in early with fluke treatment, using a tricalabendazole drench from two weeks post-housing for all stock. Post-mortem results from cattle slaughtered and further faecal testing at the end of December will determine if any further fluke treatments are required.

In a change to herd health, we now routinely vaccinate all calves for pneumonia prior to housing. This seems to give good protection against pneumonia for our herd. Only three cattle required treatment after housing and all animals recovered within hours after treatment.