Wesley is a big believer in letting nature work. He turns calves out at 24 hours of age once they’re strong and suckling. Calves go to sheltered fields first in batches of five. Wesley has done so for years.

“You have to trust nature. They go to sheltered fields first with bushes and hedges that protect them from the weather. It’s a better environment for them than being in a shed. If a scour starts in there, you’re done for. It's all about minimising health problems,” he says.

"To prevent poaching, I would give four or five cows and calves around eight acres. There'd be a number of these groups around the farm. As the spring moves on, we would batch these smaller groups up to make larger ones," he adds.

Young calves at grass. They go to grass at 24 hours old once they're strong and sucking.

Ground conditions are expectedly difficult on the farm at present.

“This [hillside field carrying cows and young calves] is the driest ground I have and five cows and calves are doing damage to it as you can see (below). That said, they're very contented outside,” Wesley points out, as we herded his sucklers last week along with his BETTER adviser, Tommy Cox.

Ground conditions on the hillside field.

Wesley uses a zero-grazing machine to bring grass to his stock and got grass into his dry cow and heifer diets for eight days prior to the heavy snowfall at the beginning of the month. Since then, however, persistent rain has left land saturated and untrafficable.

Awesome Angus

Bull-finisher Wesley runs three stock bulls as well as carrying out some AI. The bulls are Simmental (out of Bawny T-Rex), Limousin (out of Ronick Hawk) and an Angus bull from UK lines.

He currently has a group of seven Angus beef bulls that have reached slaughter ahead of their continental-bred comrades. Their average date of birth is 19 January 2017 and on 10 March 2018, Wesley recorded a group average weight of a whopping 643kg. At 13.7 months, this translates to a group average weight gain from birth of 1.44kg per day.

This bull in the Angus group weighed 736kg on 10 March - a daily growth rate of 1.64kg from birth in January 2017.

The animals will be slaughtered in the coming weeks. In the neighbouring pen, continental genetics predominate and these animals need more feeding to ensure fat targets are hit. Wesley’s Simmental bull by Bawny T-Rex, who unfortunately is to be replaced this year after sustaining a leg injury, has some exceptional progeny here. The bull pictured achieved 1.68kg of daily weight gain from birth to 10 March. He was 600kg at 11 months of age.

Wesley's SImmental bull that achieved 1.68kg from birth to 11 months.

To now, the bulls have been eating a TMR diet with 8kg of concentrate included and top-quality grass silage. Wesley has opted to bed them on sawdust from a local mill given the scarcity and price of straw.

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Recent report from Western BETTER beef farms

Wesley's first article

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