The 72 yearling heifers are now at grass on the Thrive demo farm.

Initially, two batches of 15 heifers went out on Monday. These were the lightest heifers of the batch. Meal feeding had been pulled back in preparation for turnout.

With conditions as good as they are, farmer John Hally decided to let the remaining 42 heifers out on Tuesday to paddocks close to the yard where, if needed, they could be run into the shed quite easily once again.

Initially, it was thought that they would only go out for a few hours in the morning to graze and come back into the shed in the afternoon or evening for the night, with a small amount of silage offered.

No rain

However, they have been left out full-time, as little or no rain has fallen in the past week. They are now grazing some of the heavier covers on the farm of between 1,300kg DM/ha and 1,500kg DM/ha.

These paddocks close to the yard had been the first to be closed from around 10 October, with the view to getting stock out earlier this year, even if it was just by day.

If weather conditions do change, there is still the option to do some on-off grazing.

John plans to put a batch of eight to 10 of the lightest bullocks together and get them out in the next few days as well.

Feed cost saving

Having these animals at grass is saving two bales of silage a day. At a cost of €35/bale to €40/bale, that’s a saving of up to €560/week on silage alone.

Had they been on 1.5kg/day of concentrate indoors, this is an additional saving of €330/week on meal costs.