Autumn calving draws to a close in Co Tyrone

Autumn calving is coming to an end, with just four cows left to calve from a total of 29 breeding females, which breaks down to 21 cows and eight heifers.

So far, calving has been problem-free, with cows calving outdoors and moving to grazing paddocks as soon as I am happy that the calf is sucking the cow properly.

The weather has definitely been on our side this year. Being able to calve the cows outside cuts out a lot of additional work for me, such as bedding and feeding when calving indoors. It is also more hygienic for the calf.

This year has been a complete contrast to last year, when cows had to be housed in August because of poor weather and grazing ground being saturated and unable to carry stock.

Management

The first cow calved on 28 July and, since then, I have 25 cows calved, with 26 live calves on the ground. This works out as 86% of the herd calving in six weeks.

There has been a big run of heifer calves born this year, with 18 of the 26 calves female. Hopefully, this will provide me with a good selection of breeding heifers next year.

Cows are mainly calving to Simmental and Limousin sires that were used through AI. Heifers were served to a mix of sire breeds, including some Angus.

Prior to calving, autumn cows were grazed on an outfarm and brought home to the main yard in mid-July to calve.

Body condition score (BCS) was ideal for calving, with cows being at BCS 3.0 to 3.5 and extremely fit, which will also have helped to cut down on potential calving problems.

After calving, cows have moved to good-quality grass on the paddocks beside the main farmyard. Cows are on a grass-only diet, due to good BCS and grass quality. No concentrates are being fed, which is a big cost-saving with rations at £220/t.

Breeding plans

Weather-permitting, my plans are to allow the autumn cows to remain at grass until the end of September.

At this point, autumn cows will be housed regardless of how much grass is available.

To get high conceptions rates and maintain a compact calving pattern, autumn-calving cows need to be housed at least two weeks before the start of the breeding season. This allows cows to settle into the shed and on to the winter diet.

Allowing cows to remain at grass in October would mean they are housed in the middle of the breeding season.

The sudden change in environment and diet will have a negative effect on breeding, meaning cows can slip in calving date.

Once housed, the autumn cows will be offered good-quality silage and up to 2kg/day of concentrates, depending on silage quality and BCS.

They will remain on this diet until breeding has finished and cows are settled in-calf.

The spring-calving herd has been scanned and, out of 29 cows put to the bull, there are 24 animals scanned in-calf. In total, I have six cows to be culled. I have since separated these cows from the main group. They are now on good grass and 2kg/day of a general-purpose beef blend to put as much condition on them as possible prior to sale.

Once cows are in saleable condition, they will be sold live, which will hopefully be towards the end of this month.

Given the value of cull cows, there is no benefit to holding these animals through the autumn and winter. They are better off sold early to save on winter feed and allow more space in cattle housing.

With the cull cows now identified and sold in early autumn, this also eases the demand for grass. As such, there is more grazing available for other cattle, such as spring-born weanlings and replacement heifers. I have 13 heifers born during spring 2017. This is more than I will require to maintain breeding numbers around 30 to 35 cows, so the plan is to sell off the remaining in-calf animals in the coming weeks.

Selling in-calf heifers has been a great way to add value to female animals, as the alternative would be to sell these cattle in the store ring or take them through to slaughter.

Preparing for weaning

There are 31 spring-born calves on farm and they are grazing on good-quality swards at present. The calves have just started creep-grazing ahead of the cows, so they will be getting the best grass possible.

The forward creep-grazing will also help to break the bond between the cows and calves, which should reduce stress at weaning.

I am planning to start creep-feeding now by offering meal to calves in mobile troughs, as they creep ahead of cows.

Calves have been wormed and received their first shot of pneumonia vaccine. As the bull calves will be taken through to slaughter next year, they will be fed 2kg/day of concentrate until housing.

Once housed, they will be fed high-quality silage and gradually built up towards ad-lib concentrate levels.

Ground conditions are good and I am taking the chance to get some older pasture reseeded, with just over 8ac ploughed this week. Ground will be harrowed with grass seed-broadcast. New grass definitely pays for itself, as it is much more responsive to fertiliser, especially in spring and autumn when older swards will struggle to grow on this farm.

I have 10.5 acres of third-cut silage to harvest inside the next week, which will hopefully yield between 30 and 40 bales.

This should ensure there are adequate fodder stocks on farm for the coming winter. Silage received one bag per acre of fertiliser and slurry after the second cut was harvested.

Grass growth has been high in recent weeks, which pushed the sward on. If it is mowed dry and allowed to wilt, the grass should make good-quality fodder. This will be targeted to younger stock or autumn-calving cows.