The majority of my suckler herd calves over the autumn, as this suits the farm best in terms of housing and land type. Cows started calving in August and were finished by 26 October. Calving is gradually being tightened into a more compact block and I can see the benefits of this coming through, as cows are easier to batch together in sheds.

Feeding is also simplified, with bigger numbers of cows at a similar stage in lactation compared with previous years when autumn calving ran from July to December.

Currently, there are 36 autumn-calving cows with calves at foot on farm. The target is to settle on 40 autumn-calving cows, so we are not far off that mark.

Grazing

With fantastic grazing conditions this summer, calving went well and we were able to return the earlier-calving cows back to grass again.

However, I did lose two calves. One was lost due to a difficult calving and the other died a couple of days after it was born.

I managed to foster a calf on to one of the cows. She was a younger animal and too good to be culled.

The other cow was an older animal, so I was less concerned about her. She was culled shortly after, as she was in good body condition.

Breeding starts

The breeding period started in early November. So far, 24 out of 36 cows and two heifers have been served.

There are two homebred heifers I am keeping as replacements. I do all my own AI work and I have inseminated all cows to the Charolais sire Fiston. I used him last year and his first calves are now on the ground. They are tremendous calves, with plenty of length and shape. They were also reasonably easy to calve.

To get cows ready for breeding, I made the decision to house them on 1 October to allow them to settle on their winter diet.

Cows are getting first-cut silage and 2kg/day of a general-purpose beef mix. The ration initially cost £224/t and has since increased to £230/t. But it is a good blend, with 40% maize content.

This is providing cows with additional energy during the breeding period and I think this is also helping to bring cows into heat.

Silage

Silage quality is excellent and probably the best fodder we have made on farm. We have our own silage equipment and this gives us the flexibility to cut and bale grass when weather conditions allow.

Silage was harvested from reseeded swards in May, which is unusual for this part of the country, as most farmers opt for a bulkier cut. We also have some older swards, which were harvested in mid-June.

Silage was analysed and the feed values are outlined in Table 1. First-cut silage was harvested on four different farm blocks.

Two of these have young grass swards and when combined with earlier cutting dates, feed quality is seriously good. This is evident when looking at cow condition and weight gains in weanlings.

Silage made from younger swards is dry and this is helping to stretch forage reserves. Energy is excellent at 11.2 and 11.3Mj ME, with good protein levels of 12.6% and 13.2%.

D-values are also on target for feeding autumn cows. Feed values are lower in the silage made from older swards, with this fodder being fed to dry spring-calving cows.

The difference in D-value between the young and old swards is roughly the equivalent of feeding an extra 2kg to 2.5kg/day of concentrates to weanlings.

Even with the earlier cutting, yields were not really reduced that much.

The other positive from the early cutting date is that we also got a good yield of second-cut silage and were able to graze this ground with cows and calves in late summer.

Monitoring weight gains in cattle

Since joining the programme, we are moving away from selling calves as weanlings shortly after they come off the cow. Instead, we now carry our spring-born calves through the winter to increase liveweight and sale value.

These calves are born from December to February annually, with 24 cows due to calve down during this upcoming period. While this means we need extra silage and have increased feed costs, it is a much more profitable system for us.

Heifer calves were weighed on 8 October at housing and the group averaged 295kg across 21 animals.

They were weighed again on 12 November and averaged 324kg, giving a liveweight gain of 0.84kg/day, which is excellent on an indoor diet. Taking silage at £20/t and concentrates at £230/t, feed costs are approximately 86p/day for weanlings eating 20kg of silage and 2kg of ration.

Taking a live trade price of 220p/kg, the weanlings are generating 195p/day. Key to this weight gain is the quality of silage. At lower weight gains, the economics of this system are less viable.

There are also 15 spring-born steers and they averaged 320kg on 8 October. At 12 November, the group averaged 354kg and gained 0.94kg/day between weighings. The plan is to sell these animals by February, with a target sale weight of 400kg to 450kg.

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