Weighing cattle: How are your cattle doing for weight gain this year? Are they doing 0.8kg/day, 1kg/day, 1.2kg/day or better? Weight gain is crucial, as is weight for age. I have seen a lot of cattle coming through the marts lately that are well behind target in terms of weight gain. Store cattle should be gaining around 1kg/day of liveweight from birth. A steer born in March 2015 will be just over 17 months at present, or around 510 days old. Considering that this animal started with a birth weight of 45kg, he should be weighing 550kg to 560kg at present. Between now and housing, there will be another 60kg of liveweight gain possible. Getting this animal to 620kg will greatly shorten the finishing period and get cattle into good carcase weights. Spring-born calves that will be sold this autumn as weanlings should be gaining at least 1.2kg/day while on the cow. Good cows with plenty of milk will have calves gaining 1.5kg to 1.6kg/day. Getting an extra 0.3kg/day will amount to weanlings weighing 60kg heavier over a seven-month rearing period. In a herd selling 20 weanlings at an average €2.40/kg, this would amount to an additional €3,000 in sales income, which would more than pay for a weigh bridge. Weighing cattle regularly will highlight any animal that is under-performing and allow you to intervene early to correct this.

Pneumonia Vaccine: Spring-born calves will be ready for a pneumonia vaccine in the coming weeks. Where products require a two-shot programme, vaccinating in the next fortnight will leave you giving the booster shot at the end of August or early September. This gives plenty of time for the vaccine to be effective ahead of the main weaning period in autumn. An IBR vaccine may also be used, along with the pneumonia vaccine also. Weaning is a period of high stress and when combined with variable weather conditions, calves are at high risk of developing a respiratory problem, which can be prevented with good management. Most pneumonia vaccines typically cost around €5 per shot. Giving an animal a two-shot vaccine will cost €10, which is roughly the equivalent of 4kg of liveweight. It is money well spent to safeguard the health of the animals you have spent all year rearing.

Building grass covers: Over the past two months, good grassland management will have focused on managing grass quality and taking out heavy covers as silage. From now on, the focus should be shifting towards building grass covers to extend grazing into the autumn. Grazing rotations should be starting to increase by 1.5 days per week from now onwards. Therefore, if your rotation length is currently 16 days, by the end of August it should be 24 days. Applying 25 to 30 units of nitrogen will keep grass growth ahead of cattle over the next month and will help to build covers. As silage ground rejoins the grazing platform, you can increase grazing rotations quickly. The longer rotation will give grazed paddocks more time to recover as the season progresses and growth rates start to drop off.