Sometimes it is just a random remark or conversation that can spark something a lot bigger. I was at an event recently and I was having a catch up with a friend. He told me a story about a farmer and how he chooses which cows to breed replacements from.

I thought that it would be performance related, but I was completely wrong. On wet days he would go out to the field and observe the cows.

The ones that were in the middle of the field grazing away were the ones that he would pick out for breeding his replacements. The cows that were standing under the hedge looking for shelter were not for him.

His thinking was that you need to get grass into the animal for them to milk well. So, the ones in the middle of the field were getting their bellies filled and the ones under the hedge are not eating enough.

It is a principle that our dairy farmer neighbours have been well aware of for many years – you need to get excellent quality feed into cows to get the production out, whether inside the house or at grass.

Growth rates

This got me thinking about things at home and how we can affect performance.

I have recently weighed a lot of the growing cattle that have been grazed this year, and for the first time I have been able to get growth rates of over 1kg/day for the whole grazing season.

Other years I could get over 1kg for a few months, but it would tail off in difficult weather.

It has been a wonderful year for grass growth here. We have had lots of grass although there were times when the quality was not as good as I would have liked.

The one significant difference this year is that the cattle seemed to always be on their feet and eating grass.

In other words, there were very few days that the cattle were standing under the hedges sheltering from the rain, or very few days when they had to shelter from the sun.

I have noticed in really hot weather, if the animals are lying stretched out in the sun or standing under a tree for shade, then performance can be restricted. I used to think if cattle were lying stretched out, then they must be performing well – this is not necessarily the case.

Weighbridge

The same friend that told me the story about breeding replacements is actually a cereal farmer – and he says that the most important thing he has on the farm is his weigh bridge.

This again struck a chord with me. My cattle weigh bridge is probably the most valuable thing on my farm.

Without weighing cattle, I would not know with any degree of certainty, how well they were performing.

And the fact that I have been weighing cattle for years, means that I can compare performance year on year – if there is a difference I can try and work out what has caused it.

There is nothing I can do about the weather, but I can monitor performance and tweak my management to suit. Perhaps my next challenge is to choose lines of breeding that perform better in our climatic conditions.