Silage season has officially come to an end here at Drumforber. A final 25ac of silage was cut last week yielding 6.5 bales to the acre, boosting winter fodder reserves by over 160 bales. The majority of this was from an under sown field that was cut for whole crop six weeks earlier.
A fodder budget had been drawn up in early September and there was a shortfall of about 100 bales, so all going to plan the farm is now well set up for the winter.
It was amazing how well the under sown field came back after being cut, with the grass quite thick already. This silage was an added bonus as we didn’t expect to get another cut from this ground. We had debated bringing the under sown crop right through to harvest but with the way the spring barley was this year we didn’t feel it was worth doing.
Grass supply ahead of cattle remains good with ground conditions excellent.
Grass
Currently grass supply on farm is good with enough ahead of stock to keep them going until the end of the month at least. Ground conditions could not be better at the moment, a stark contrast to 12 months previous when all cattle were housed by mid-September.
High Mg buckets are out with all stock groups to avoid any issues with staggers now that the weather is quite changeable. We have been getting some ground frost over the last week or so.
With ground conditions so good we are looking at out-wintering a batch of cows or perhaps heifers on stubble ground this year.
Looking at the figures, the cost of wintering a cow is just too much here at the moment. We need to look at any way possible to reduce this cost – of which bedding is a significant proportion.
Woodchip
We have moved to using woodchip for the last couple of winters as we are able to dry our own chip. This has saved some costs compared to straw bedding but still is by no means cheap. We sell chip to other farmers as well. This year there is increased interest in using woodchip as a bedding alternative.
Last year for the dry cows, on an ammonia-treated straw diet from housing until mid-February when we switched to straw, bedding costs per cow stood at £68 for woodchip. This is costing chip into the cattle at £85/t which is what it is trading at this year. If you compare this to straw prices at the moment that equates to a little over three bales of straw per cow for 140 days.
We have tried a number of ways to bed with chip, the first year we put in a deep base of chip maybe a foot deep, however we felt we didn’t get the good of the chip at the bottom as the dung didn’t get down as far as it.
Clover sward that will be grazed by sheep.
Since then we have put a wedge of chip in deepest at the back wall at between 6” and 8”, and slope it right down to the front of the court. The cattle will spread it out themselves over time. Once the initial chip is dirty we find going in maybe once a week or so with a small amount to top it up works best.
The chip will go black but cattle remain clean and dry and comfortable on it. The majority of the dung will be along the front where they are eating and so if you can create a scrape pass along the front it will save a lot of bedding.
We still change over to straw prior to calving as the chip may hurt the calves’ feet and we feel straw keeps the cows that bit cleaner for calving.
Weaning progress
The oldest batch of calves will be fitted with quiet weans this week in preparation for housing and weaning. These are plastic nose flaps that prevent the calves from sucking the cows but reduces the stress levels around weaning time as the calves can remain with their mothers while they are being weaned. The calves will then be removed from the cows a week to 10 days later.
Weaning can be a very stressful time on a calf. Not only are we taking them away from the cows, we often put them in a strange environment such as a shed with other stressed calves, remove their source of milk and also change them onto a silage-based diet that they have never seen before.
We used them last year and feel it is worth the small bit of effort of an extra handling. For us, the cattle are used to going through the handling unit as we weigh cattle regularly here anyway. We measured performance throughout the weaning period last year. A couple of calves managed to lose their nose flaps and when you look at the daily liveweight gains over the period, those that lost them grew much slower directly after being removed from the cows than those that had the nose flaps.
This was proof enough for us that they were working. Beef farmers work on tight enough margins as it is, cattle need to be thriving at all times. Often we think of a pneumonia outbreak costing us in terms of veterinary costs when in fact the biggest cost is the loss of production during this time.
Autumn calving
Autumn calving has kicked off slowly, we do some embryo work here on the pedigree side, there has been a few recipient heifers calved in the last couple of weeks. There are another 23 still to calve, the majority will be over the next six weeks or so but some will run on a bit longer.
Silage sampling
Silage samples have now been taken and sent off for analysis. There are quite a number of silages on farm this winter. We have our first cut which should be good-quality and will be aimed at the young growing stock. Second cut will be that bit poorer as we were waiting so long for it to grow. It will no doubt be stemmier, however it will be just fine for the cows. We also have the whole crop silage which should be good-quality, it will be interesting to see how it analyses and feeds.
We also have some high-clover silage bales which were cut after the fallow ground restrictions had passed. This has also recovered well and we are looking at letting the aftermath out for sheep grazing. Not only will this provide us with some extra income, it will also help tiller the sward and make sure we don’t go into the winter with too high a cover on the ground. The sheep will also eat off some of the older pasture ground to clean it out for the winter.
Westpit Nando sold recently to the Ronick herd, Stirling.
Bull sales
We recently sold one of our pedigree Limousin bulls, Westpit Nando privately to Ronald Dick of the Ronick herd, Stirling. Nando by Dinmore Immense, had always been the pick at home, he has great width, style, moves very well, has a great temperament and a wonderful pedigree also. His dam Brockhurst Holy is very highly thought of and has been part of the herds flushing programme for some time. She has also produced another of our top selling bulls Westpit Lowry.
Silage season has officially come to an end here at Drumforber. A final 25ac of silage was cut last week yielding 6.5 bales to the acre, boosting winter fodder reserves by over 160 bales. The majority of this was from an under sown field that was cut for whole crop six weeks earlier.
A fodder budget had been drawn up in early September and there was a shortfall of about 100 bales, so all going to plan the farm is now well set up for the winter.
It was amazing how well the under sown field came back after being cut, with the grass quite thick already. This silage was an added bonus as we didn’t expect to get another cut from this ground. We had debated bringing the under sown crop right through to harvest but with the way the spring barley was this year we didn’t feel it was worth doing.
Grass supply ahead of cattle remains good with ground conditions excellent.
Grass
Currently grass supply on farm is good with enough ahead of stock to keep them going until the end of the month at least. Ground conditions could not be better at the moment, a stark contrast to 12 months previous when all cattle were housed by mid-September.
High Mg buckets are out with all stock groups to avoid any issues with staggers now that the weather is quite changeable. We have been getting some ground frost over the last week or so.
With ground conditions so good we are looking at out-wintering a batch of cows or perhaps heifers on stubble ground this year.
Looking at the figures, the cost of wintering a cow is just too much here at the moment. We need to look at any way possible to reduce this cost – of which bedding is a significant proportion.
Woodchip
We have moved to using woodchip for the last couple of winters as we are able to dry our own chip. This has saved some costs compared to straw bedding but still is by no means cheap. We sell chip to other farmers as well. This year there is increased interest in using woodchip as a bedding alternative.
Last year for the dry cows, on an ammonia-treated straw diet from housing until mid-February when we switched to straw, bedding costs per cow stood at £68 for woodchip. This is costing chip into the cattle at £85/t which is what it is trading at this year. If you compare this to straw prices at the moment that equates to a little over three bales of straw per cow for 140 days.
We have tried a number of ways to bed with chip, the first year we put in a deep base of chip maybe a foot deep, however we felt we didn’t get the good of the chip at the bottom as the dung didn’t get down as far as it.
Clover sward that will be grazed by sheep.
Since then we have put a wedge of chip in deepest at the back wall at between 6” and 8”, and slope it right down to the front of the court. The cattle will spread it out themselves over time. Once the initial chip is dirty we find going in maybe once a week or so with a small amount to top it up works best.
The chip will go black but cattle remain clean and dry and comfortable on it. The majority of the dung will be along the front where they are eating and so if you can create a scrape pass along the front it will save a lot of bedding.
We still change over to straw prior to calving as the chip may hurt the calves’ feet and we feel straw keeps the cows that bit cleaner for calving.
Weaning progress
The oldest batch of calves will be fitted with quiet weans this week in preparation for housing and weaning. These are plastic nose flaps that prevent the calves from sucking the cows but reduces the stress levels around weaning time as the calves can remain with their mothers while they are being weaned. The calves will then be removed from the cows a week to 10 days later.
Weaning can be a very stressful time on a calf. Not only are we taking them away from the cows, we often put them in a strange environment such as a shed with other stressed calves, remove their source of milk and also change them onto a silage-based diet that they have never seen before.
We used them last year and feel it is worth the small bit of effort of an extra handling. For us, the cattle are used to going through the handling unit as we weigh cattle regularly here anyway. We measured performance throughout the weaning period last year. A couple of calves managed to lose their nose flaps and when you look at the daily liveweight gains over the period, those that lost them grew much slower directly after being removed from the cows than those that had the nose flaps.
This was proof enough for us that they were working. Beef farmers work on tight enough margins as it is, cattle need to be thriving at all times. Often we think of a pneumonia outbreak costing us in terms of veterinary costs when in fact the biggest cost is the loss of production during this time.
Autumn calving
Autumn calving has kicked off slowly, we do some embryo work here on the pedigree side, there has been a few recipient heifers calved in the last couple of weeks. There are another 23 still to calve, the majority will be over the next six weeks or so but some will run on a bit longer.
Silage sampling
Silage samples have now been taken and sent off for analysis. There are quite a number of silages on farm this winter. We have our first cut which should be good-quality and will be aimed at the young growing stock. Second cut will be that bit poorer as we were waiting so long for it to grow. It will no doubt be stemmier, however it will be just fine for the cows. We also have the whole crop silage which should be good-quality, it will be interesting to see how it analyses and feeds.
We also have some high-clover silage bales which were cut after the fallow ground restrictions had passed. This has also recovered well and we are looking at letting the aftermath out for sheep grazing. Not only will this provide us with some extra income, it will also help tiller the sward and make sure we don’t go into the winter with too high a cover on the ground. The sheep will also eat off some of the older pasture ground to clean it out for the winter.
Westpit Nando sold recently to the Ronick herd, Stirling.
Bull sales
We recently sold one of our pedigree Limousin bulls, Westpit Nando privately to Ronald Dick of the Ronick herd, Stirling. Nando by Dinmore Immense, had always been the pick at home, he has great width, style, moves very well, has a great temperament and a wonderful pedigree also. His dam Brockhurst Holy is very highly thought of and has been part of the herds flushing programme for some time. She has also produced another of our top selling bulls Westpit Lowry.
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