One evening, when we were sitting at the dinner table, my youngest son said: “It’s funny the way that some farmers use meal to cover up poor management.”

At the time, I thought that it was very observant of someone so young to be noticing such things.

I think what was really exercising him was the way some farmers are managing their grass, and then using meal to compensate for this.

This has ended up a very difficult back end to the year and it has been almost impossible to get good quality grass into cattle. I can see why you would need to feed meal to boost performance and, in some cases, to try to stretch out limited silage supplies.

But having said that, it should be remembered that there were a few great months in the early part of the year when, with good grassland management, there should have been no need to carry meal to cattle, and plenty of opportunities to get lots of grass harvested.

Expense

When I look at my benchmarking figures concentrate feed is, by far, the largest single expense.

It’s so easy to carry feed when cattle aren’t performing, rather than manage grass a little better. So many farmers are not content unless they are running with buckets of meal every day of the year.

I’m not suggesting, for one moment, that you can get away without offering concentrate at all. The secret is knowing when you need to offer meal, and also when you need to improve your management.

This year, I have tried to manage my grassland better and, in particular, to make higher quality silage. In the past, I relied on excuses as to why I wasn’t succeeding. It’s so easy to blame the weather, especially in this county.

In 2017, I have managed to grow more better quality grass and, up until mid-July, performance was good on grass alone. Then when the weather went downhill we had to introduce meal, and start to house cattle. This was when we needed some superior quality silage.

We cut bales from paddocks almost every week from the beginning of May and into July. Quite often, there were only a few bales per acre. These have turned out to be good quality (made from leafy grass) and I have been feeding them for over two months now.

My bulls have put on 120kg in two months on this silage, plus 6kg of meal. When I look back at last year’s bulls it puts everything into perspective. They achieved 1.5kg of daily weight gain on 10kg of meal and silage.

At a rough count, it’s a saving of £1 per head per day. I’m only finishing thirty cattle, but that’s £30 per day or £210 per week.

I had some bales of silage left over from last year and, at the time, I thought they were reasonably good. The cattle were fond of them, but looking back, the quality of grass wasn’t great.

I have been feeding ad-lib to some in-calf heifers, and they actually lost weight.

I am completely convinced that we can all make more money by managing our grass better and making better quality silage. It might not always be easy or possible, but if we are successful we will be financially rewarded. It’s difficult enough to make farming pay as it is without adding unnecessary costs.