The weekend brought a lot of cattle indoors, with ground conditions simply becoming too tricky for farmers to handle.
Some areas that are on drier runs of ground have managed to hold cattle out, but even these farmers know that the amount of days of significant numbers of cattle staying out are in the single digits.
With decent ground conditions, and many beef farms now having a dairy beef enterprise tacked on to it, it’s easier to keep cattle out longer.
These light beef stock are the ideal candidates to mop up grass, but that’s provided you have it there to begin with. A word of caution needs to be exercised as we see growth fall off that we do not eat in to covers and affect our spring grass supply.
Walk the farm, know what grass is available and calculate where you want it and how much grass you want for spring 2027. It’s of much greater value to you then as opposed to now.
William Treacy – Hackballscross, Co Louth
We are still trying to party on with grazing, though conditions have gotten much trickier. We are moving cattle onto fresh grass every day and back fencing to help protect ground as much as possible. We have some heavy covers still there that I would like to get grazed off while we still have the numbers out, though the days ahead on PastureBase are also below target.
Beef heifers for finishing have been housed, as well as a batch of spring calvers that were then weaned, with calves given access to a paddock if they wanted. Autumn calving cows will hopefully remain at grass for another week or so, with a bull having been turned out with these. Maiden heifers have also been turned out with a Saler bull, and I will try and keep these and some dairy beef calves at grass for as long as possible.
System Suckler to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 803
Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 41
Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 33
Ger McSweeney – Millstreet, Co Cork
We’ve had more rain than wind over the last week or so, but ground has held up relatively well.
All cattle bar the bull weanlings remain outside, and after having had to feed out silage during the summer, it’s a real bonus to still have all cattle out this time of the year when we would often have plenty housed.
There are some heavy covers of grass and these are tricky to get cleaned out satisfactorily, but we are getting through them all the same.
Heifers were weaned two weeks ago and cattle are in small bunches to help to limit pressure on paddocks. Dry cows are cleaning up behind the heifer weanlings and cull cows. Cull cows are on 4-5kg of meal at grass, and had been very slow to take off but have now since put flesh on. They will be housed over the next week.
System Suckler to weanling/beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 1,083
Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 22
Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 32
Sasha Lavin – Newford Herd, Co Roscommon
Even with the wet weather over the weekend, it’s only gaps and along hedges that ground has seen damage.
We will be housing the bullocks and cull cows at the weekend to help reduce demand and push these on further with finishing. Bullocks will see meal levels increased from 2kg to 4kg at housing and will be fed high DMD silage.
Weanlings and in-calf cows will remain at grass for the time being, as will the replacement heifers recently bought in. Weanlings continue to get 2kg meal/head/day at grass and are grazing out paddocks well for weanlings.
We have them on 12-hour breaks which is helping. They have all been dung sampled again this week and we will see what the results are, but we have no coughing in the weanlings yet. They will receive an IBR booster next week.
System Suckler to beef
Soil Type Variable
Farm cover (kg/DM/ha) 709
Growth (kg/DM/ha/day) 15
Demand (kg/DM/ha/day) 33
