I have been closing up ground at a slower rate than anticipated due to excellent autumn growth. I suffered badly with drought in the summer, but grazing was back on track by mid-September. I aim to have 70% of my ground closed by mid-November.

The majority of weanlings are housed at this stage and I am waiting on silage analysis results. I was delayed in cutting silage this year by a week due to a combination of wet weather and the contractor being busy. I have stored 35t of home-grown barley for feeding. Extra fodder beet will also be kept for feeding.

The barley was rolled and treated with prop-corn. The level of feeding will be decided by my silage results, but I expect to feed more fodder beet and barley this year. All fodder beet and barley is costed into the cattle enterprise at market price.

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I have purchased extra heifers for finishing this year after completing a few budgets.

Heifers weighed 310kg to 330kg liveweight and were purchased at an average price of €2.50/kg. The aim is to finish these animals out of the shed at 16 to 17 months of age and at approximately 310kg carcase weight.

Weanling bulls have been castrated and housed. They will be on a similar diet to the heifers. They will be fed 8kg to 10kg of beet, plus 0.5kg of soya, along with silage. I hope to turn these steers out to grass early in March next year.

My finishing steers are being built up to 7kg of barley, 15kg to 20kg of beet and 0.5kg of soya, plus silage. I aim to kill them at around 420kg to 440kg carcase weight at 22 to 23 months out of the shed.

With the help of my programme adviser, we assessed lifetime performance of cattle on farm. Steers have gained 0.94kg/day from birth, with heifers gaining 0.92kg/day. It was a fairly good result and something which I aim to improve over the next few years.