Delaying the start of spring calving

After a difficult spring period, when housing facilities came under pressure due to the delayed turnout of livestock, we have made the decision to push our calving pattern back to start later in spring.

The idea behind this is to have cows calving closer to typical turnout date in mid-April, rather than March. To push the calving pattern back, we delayed the start of the breeding period by three weeks this year.

Breeding got under way in mid-June, with cows being served to Angus or Hereford stock bulls, as well as a selection of cows and replacement heifers being served to AI. In total, there are 106 cows and heifers being served this year. This breaks down to 35 cows running with the Hereford bull. A second group of 35 cows is now running with an Angus bull.

However, the Angus bull is acting more like a sweeper, as 28 cows within this group were served to AI before joining the bull.

As my cow type is predominantly Angus breeding, I have used the Limousin sire Lodge Hamlet on 10 cows to see how introducing a third breed type will affect calf performance and carcase weight.

I have also used the Angus sire Netherton Mr Radar on cows in this group. Using AI is a great way to introduce new genetics to the herd and all 28 cows were inseminated inside a five-day period after they were injected with estrumate.

Replacements

In addition to the two cow groups, I have a group of 36 replacement heifers being served to a mix of AI and a second Angus bull.

All 36 heifers were treated with estrumate, but only 26 animals were served to AI over a four-day period.

To aid heat detection, I used a teaser bull with a chin ball and tail paint, which worked well.

Heifers have been served to the Angus sire Mr Radar and, to date, there have been just seven of 26 heifers repeating.

The 10 heifers that did not come into heat were allowed to run with the bull and they all appear to have been covered at this point. The bull has also been used to cover the seven heifers that repeated.

All breeding activity in terms of dates of heat and service have been recorded for management purposes. This has helped to watch out for repeat breeding activity in heifers and cows.

Scanning records

The stock bulls are settled with the cows, so the plan is to leave them for the rest of the summer period.

With the late start to the breeding period and the possibility of cows being under heat stress in early July, we have no planned date for removing the stock bulls.

Instead, we will scan the cows in September and use this information to sell any late-calving cows from the herd.

It will most likely be a handful of cows that fall outside of our preferred calving period, but we will make a decision on the best market option for these animals in autumn.

Last autumn, we sold nine in-calf heifers shortly after the scanning period and this is something we plan on repeating as there is an opportunity to sell more heifers to repeat customers.

With 36 heifers being served this year, this is more than we will need to serve as replacements within our herd.

Therefore, there is a good opportunity to add value to heifers by selling the remainder as in-calf replacements.

Last year, the in-calf heifers averaged £1,150 at 18 months old. There is also a group of 27 store heifers which we felt were not suitable for breeding. These animal will be finished off grass this autumn.

As the suckler herd has been expanding since it was established, there have been very few heifers finished to date as they were normally held for breeding.

It will be interesting to compare the margins between the in-calf heifers and the finishing group at the end of the year.

Along with the store heifers, I have two groups of store bullocks grazing and the plan is to finish them in late autumn to early winter.

The first group consists of 33 home-bred bullocks which are predominantly Angus with some Hereford animals.

The second group consists of 24 dairy-bred bullocks originating from the same herd that I source heifer calves to rear as replacements.

The Hereford bullocks were weighed on 30 June and averaged 421kg having previously averaged 357kg on 30 April. The Angus bullocks averaged 400kg on 30 June having averaged 341kg on 30 April.

Fluke

The bullocks were also weighed on 24 May and weight gains were low at 0.3kg/day, which was causing us concern. After taking some dung samples, it was evident that the cattle were suffering from a heavy fluke burden even though they had been treated twice over the winter period.

The problem was the result of grazing during wet conditions this spring. After treating cattle in late May, there has been a noticeable improvement in performance with cattle averaging close to 1.4kg/day since late May.

After a late turnout and fluke burden, cattle are well behind target in terms of weight gain and around 30kg to 40kg lighter than the equivalent cattle last year. The original plan was to try and finish the bullocks off grass. However, this might not be an option now as cattle are below target unless there are favourable grazing conditions from now until October.

If killing off grass is not an option, the alternative is to house the animals for a short intensive finishing period.

Grazing

Grass growth has tailed off significantly in the past couple of weeks due to the lack of rainfall. We have had 9mm of rain since 19 June.

However, the dry weather has allowed us to reduce the size of grazing paddocks, which has increased grass utilisation and helped to slow down the grazing rotation. First-cut silage was harvested on 4 June and was lighter than we would have liked. Second-cut silage was been sown out straight after harvesting first cut, with fertiliser applications based on soil analysis.

There are 37 acres of silage which will be ensiled in the pit with around 20 acres of silage ground to be baled.

We also cut 16 acres of silage from the grazing block, yielding 51 bales. We will complete a fodder budget after second cut and consider our winter feed options. Last year, we purchased straw to stretch silage reserves. That may be expensive this winter.