Breeding Decisions: Some planning ahead of breeding can help to make important decisions before the season starts. A cow bred on 1 May 2017, based on a 286-day gestation, will calve on 11 February 2018. Ask yourself the question: is this too early for your farm, or is it too late? If you are planning to AI, cows should be tail-painted now and heats recorded before the breeding season starts.

Teaser bulls should be vasectomised two months before they are required. Make sure cows are on a rising plane of nutrition (ie good-quality, spring grass) and are gaining body condition in the next few weeks.

Also make sure vaccinations for BVD and Lepto are up to date on cows and any breeding bulls. Breeding heifers should get two shots of each vaccine, four weeks apart in advance of breeding.

Stock bulls should be fertility-tested prior to turnout with cows to make sure they are up to the job in hand. If purchasing a stock bull you should try and purchase him at least one month in advance of breeding.

Stretching feed with concentrates: For farmers who are running out of silage quickly, you can stretch grass silage with concentrate feeds. However, be wary that if you leave grass silage in front of animals at all times and offer concentrates, the reduction in silage intake can be small.

Teagasc research shows that every 1kg of concentrate fed at a low to moderate level (0-3kg in weanlings, 0-6kg in cows/stores) will reduce grass silage intake by 0.3 to 0.65kg.

The replacement rate, or substitution rate, will be lower with poorer-quality silage (you save less silage) and higher with good-quality (>70% DMD) silage (you save more silage).

At least 50% of the animals’ diet must be made up of forage. For a 350kg weanling you must feed 3.5kg of dry matter as forage, which equals 12kg of 30% dry matter silage. For a 500kg animal you must feed 17kg of fresh weight (30% DM) silage. Ask yourself the question: can I get a few weanlings out on a dry part of the farm? Any stock out will help reduce fodder requirements.

Selling stock: I know it’s a last resort, but if feed is very scarce and you can’t source any within the locality or cash is very tight, there is no harm in looking to offload some stock to ease the pressure.

All cattle seem to be selling very well in marts around the country and cull cows seem to be an especially good trade. If cattle have been fed well all winter, do the sums on what additional value they will leave based on current prices.

Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm beef walks: Two walks take place in the next week on programme farms. Gareth McCormack’s walk in Cavan is on Thursday, 5 April, at 3pm (Eircode: A82 A5R3).

Glen McDermott’s walk in Sligo takes place next Tuesday, 10 April, at 4pm (Eircode: F52 DY24).