Donie Ahern

Co Limerick

I have recently sent five cows, six young bulls and nine young heifers to the factory. The cows averaged 300kg carcase weight and the bulls averaged 408kg carcase weight, with a high proportion grading U= and U-. The heifers averaged 308kg carcase weight and also graded well. I plan to have another 90 cattle finished in the next few months, between cows, bulls and heifers.

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I have my bulls on a finishing diet of 12kg of a high energy ration, along with 7kg of water, 0.5kg of straw and 8kg of silage. I feel that adding water to the ration helps increase the feed intake levels.

The heifers and cull cows are on 8kg of ration, 12kg of silage, 0.5kg of straw and 4kg of water. The silage being fed to these cattle is baled silage of 76 DMD and 56% dry matter.

Most of my weanlings and dry cows are still grazing. I have the late autumn/winter 2012 weanlings on 4kg of meal at grass and I also give them access to hay. The strongest of these animals will be slaughtered by the end of March 2014.

I have had a great backend on the grazing front, with 88% of my ground closed so far. I plan to let cows clean out the remaining paddocks until the first week of December and will house my weanlings by the end of this week.

I took some faecal samples from cattle and they tested positive for liver fluke, so I dosed them this week. I will sample again in about three weeks time to see if they are clear of fluke eggs.

Overall, I am very pleased with how my farm performed this year, despite the difficult start. I have really harnessed the grass growing ability of my farm and plan to build on this further next year. I am hoping that it will lead to an improvement in my profit monitor results for 2013.